Beretta
by brkstrtrcr
Summary: WA. Companion piece to "Glock."
1. Beretta

Disclaimer: Kazuya Minekura owns Wild Adapter. I do not.

Warning: Violence, death, mayhem, language. God bless this series.

Note: Another POV piece. It's an addiction. Consider it a companion piece to **Glock**. This one takes place during the events of Volume 6 of the English manga. Figured I'd try Kubota's perception of things. He is my favorite, after all.

**Beretta**

brkstrtrcr

May 2009

It never ceases to amaze you how punctual and efficient trains are. They clang and clatter into the station at exactly the right time, idle only long enough to regurgitate salary workers and school children, and depart so quickly that for a moment you just sit back and marvel silently, wondering if maybe your mind had simply made it all up.

And as you board the next one, pushing your way past suits and ties and satchels and briefcases, you speculate that perhaps this train station in the heart of Yokohama's Chinatown is an oddly-appropriate metaphor for life.

You love metaphors, always have, and the more obscure the better. Your mind is agile and clever, and you spend an inordinate amount of time mulling over useless bits of trivia. Because what is the average person if not a wealth of useless information? You smile as you think about _that_, and the schoolgirl standing beside you shies away an inch or two. That isn't so important, though; you're used to garnering that sort of reaction from people.

The train slows as it rumbles along its tracks and you stare through the dirty, scratched Plexiglas window, leaning most of your weight on the handrails, watching your gritty, inhospitable city flash by.

People are absolutely brimming with useless knowledge. Kou spent several minutes discussing the finer points of tea with you almost an hour ago. Kasai knows more about the history of mahjong than perhaps even you. And Tokitoh can talk for days about strategies for fighting games. Your smile widens involuntarily as your mind slips against its will from Philosophical Scholar Mode, like a car being shifted into a lower gear.

As much as you spend your long days contemplating the deeper meaning of your own futile existence and all of its poetic qualities, you devote more time to mulling over your roommate's behavior. Tokitoh is extremely interesting, and you've always been helplessly fascinated with new things. He's predictable to the point of safety but random and excitable enough to hold your attention, and you're positive that no other person in this hell-hole of a city could captivate your interest the way that he can.

He catches Sanada's eye as well, but for much different reasons. The leader of Izumo sees Tokitoh as a bargaining chip, leverage and not as a living, breathing young man with a fiery temper and a homicidal roommate. When he takes Tokitoh away from you, you turn his headquarters into a crime scene. Then you get off the train and walk into Kou's shop with a bullet wound in your shoulder and your front covered in blood. Half of it is yours.

Kou likes to make cryptic references to the calm ferocity with which you stand guardian over your stray, and while you normally brush it off with a laugh or ignore him outright, you understand implicitly that he's dangerously correct. You know it to be as true as gravity and twice as strong. Tokitoh has provoked new and strong and surprising thoughts in you. If you're very blunt with yourself, and you tend to be, you acknowledge that you're almost intimidated by the loud, angry little thing.

Fear is something foreign and entirely unfamiliar to you; or it was until a crooked smile and a foolish course of action finds Tokitoh outside of your protection, your possession, and in the hands of some rather brutal young men. You kill them all without a backwards glance, turning an old cargo liner into a bloodbath of Yakuza corpses. Right now your mind is so narrowly focused on that angry little cat that you fail to identify the slow dread coiling heavy in your gut. What makes it real is the sight of the Izumo youth leader's gun in his hand, the way he holds it in his cut and bleeding fingers like he's done this so many times that it is second nature.

That gets your attention. It occurs to you in that briefest of moments that Tokitoh is becoming more and more like you with every breath that he takes, and that knowledge scares the living hell out of you.

The cussing had been his. He's interspersed profanity in his speech from the minute that he'd woken up, spitting and hissing and perpetually indignant. Someone else had taught him that, and so the guilt there isn't yours to bear. The quick temper and irrational anger are also his, but you suspect that is more of an oddly endearing personality trait than a learned behavior. His love of video games and manga had come from Shouta. His innate fear of women you blame pretty heavily on Anna and Saori--the former for her rather unflattering sexual advances on your cat and the latter for displaying the eccentricities of the female psyche under duress.

He's always been a terrible liar where it came naturally to you. He has a definite sweet tooth, and you do not. He's very tactile when it comes to you, playing with your hair while he watches television, holding your hand when he thinks no one is looking, rubbing against you like a cat while he sleeps. You yourself have never really seen the point in touching people, either in displays of affection or even violence. You prefer quicker and easier means of dispatch, but Tokitoh jumps directly into the fray. He says it's more personal, but you think the way he sighs into your ear when you press against him in the tight confines of your bed is much more personal than a fistfight.

The rest of his personality has been shaped unintentionally by your words, by your smile, by your hands. He's watched you for the last two years like curious strays are apt to do and he's inherited parts of your own personality that you had hoped he'd never really witness. He knows how to break a spine with his hands. He's learned how to clean your gun, and even prides himself on how quickly he can dismantle and reassemble the damned thing. He can recite the law code and section number of every law he's ever broken while acting under your coercion. He knows exactly where Izumo territory ends, where Tojou turf begins, and which 7-11s in both jurisdictions pay out protection money each month.

You watch in a confused blend of shock and horror as he aims the Izumo bastard's gun at the man's head and stares him down with cold, dead eyes. Eyes he learned from you.

_What the fuck am I doing to this kid?_

Remorse isn't something that you feel often, but you know what it is. You felt it nip at your conscience when Komiya died, and you let it sink angry fangs into your gut and rip your insides into proverbial shreds now. Of all the people to pass that graveyard of an alleyway on that January afternoon, why were you the one to pick him up and take him in, away from the pain and cold?

You ask yourself this question now because you know that he never will. Tokitoh doesn't regret you snatching him out of that alley. He thinks that you're the greatest thing since Wonder bread, and who are you to tell him otherwise? But part of your mind--the tiny portion that still wonders what would have happened had Komiya not been slaughtered like an animal in a hail of indiscriminate gunfire--contemplates how different Tokitoh's life would be _right now_ if he had been taken in by someone else. Someone like Kasai, or even Shouta's family. Someone who doesn't run in the same circles as you or Kou or Sanada, or this bastard lying on the deck of this ship glaring up at your roommate.

Would he be safer? Probably not, you answer yourself honestly, as you move carefully behind him and slide your hand slowly up his arm so that he knows it's you. The Yakuza would still be after him, and chances are that animal-like hand of his would have freaked out even the kindest of good samaritans.

Would he be happier? You aren't sure of the answer to that. Tokitoh seems the most content when he's curled up on the couch, practically in your lap, watching nature documentaries and asking an avalanche of questions to satisfy his curiosity about _everything_. But sometimes you have the suspicion that had he woken up somewhere else, in someone else's bed, that anonymous stranger would have received his unconditional loyalty, his eventual tentative trust, and his guarded affection. Sometimes you think that you could have been substituted by anyone else in Yokohama with a healthy supply of video games and a warm lap.

Would he have had a better quality of life? Of this you're certain. Tokitoh could be in school right now. He could be living in a nice house, with a family, with normal people to teach him moral values and integrity. Instead he shares your terminally messy apartment, a cramped bed, and your old clothes, always too big in the waist and too long at the sleeves. His knowledge base is the TV and anything on it. His morals consist of 'the Yakuza is bad', 'killing is justified sometimes', and 'if Kubo-chan says or does it, it must be okay.' You humor yourself that he wasn't exactly a complete innocent when you found him, but that doesn't justify the sorts of things you've exposed him to, the example that you've been to him.

You close your hand around his around this borrowed pistol, your eyes scanning down the barrel engraved 'Beretta .40cal' and at this asshole's heart, and you can't help the sense of amazement that crashes over you as he leans reflexively back against you, his shoulders slumping ever so slightly in silent relief. It's second nature to him now.

_You_ are second nature to him now.

You slip you trigger finger around his and guide him, pulling the metal actuator back smoothly and confidently, and he doesn't close his eyes, doesn't turn away, doesn't flinch as you commit murder together as one mind.

_Kubota_, you sigh inwardly as you stand there in the cold and survey your handiwork with the appreciative eye that only a serial killer truly possesses. _You are a bad, bad man._

You smile though, because you understand that the last of Tokitoh's innocent and naive young mind was just snuffed out without ceremony, like the aspirations of hollow power and greed now bleeding out of the man lying dead before you on the deck. Tokitoh's a killer now, the same as you, and he became this same breed of monster knowingly and willingly. And though unspoken, you've made a pact of sorts, signed in the blood of your enemy. You may have been born to fight, live, and die in the streets of Yokohama like animals, but you will fight, live, and die together. Whether it means that you swallow the business end of your gun when Tokitoh's insides explode across the walls of your apartment, or you singlehandedly manage to destroy the power-chain of the Yakuza in this whore of a city, you're with him until the gory end. And the fierce look in his violet eyes as he takes the stolen Beretta from your hand and shoves it into the waistband of his jeans? Yeah. This monster is staying by your side come hell, Sanada, or high water. Tokitoh isn't going anywhere.

The helicopter overhead signals danger, and you squint up through the glaringly bright spotlight and catch a glimpse of a corporal ghost from your past. Sanada is always around, watching and stalking and prying and prodding at you like an itch that you'll never manage to scratch, and then the gunfire erupts from on high and you shove Tokitoh towards the railing of the ship. He's played enough video games to know that the ocean is a safe zone that magically absorbs bullets, so he doesn't hesitate to scurry over the railing and plunge into the sea.

As you leap from the railing after him you find your own turn of phrase ironic: hell, Sanada, or high water. The Yakuza boss is above you, the ocean's right beneath you, and after everything here is said and done, you know exactly which realm of the afterlife you'll spend eternity in. And that idiot hissing and spluttering twenty feet below you in the sea? Yeah, he'll walk right beside you into the flames of hell, because he's a loyal little shit, and you're in this together.


	2. Beretta 2

Disclaimer: Kazuya Minekura owns Wild Adapter. I do not.

Warning: Language.

Note: Couldn't help it. Had to write a second chapter. I don't know if I'll add onto it after this, but I might. Feedback would be beneficial in the brainstorming process. Also, after rereading Volume 6 for the billionth time I noticed that I've made a technical error—Osamu's gun isn't a Beretta at all; it's a Colt 45. I'm way too lazy too go back and re-title this story, though. :/

**Beretta-2**

brkstrtrcr

June 2009

The water is freezing, and the bullet wound still fresh and raw in your shoulder screams in protest to the salinity here, but you're alive if not a bit uncomfortable, so you ignore the stinging throb and reach out, snagging the hood of Tokitoh's sweatshirt like a guide rope and pulling him closer. The skinny little thing barely weighed enough to burden you when you carried him home that frigid January afternoon, but he's put on a few pounds since then, and soaking wet he's definitely heavier. For a long while you do your damnedest to keep your heads above water and wait for Kou to arrive with the speedboat. Your life is like a Hollywood action movie. You wonder how your unconscious co-star would respond to that particular simile.

He gives you the opportunity to ask when he moans groggily and opens pained violet eyes to find you floating amiably beside him, but there are things to say that are so much more important, right now.

I'm sorry.

Great shot.

I love you.

That last one catches you completely off-guard and apparently your surprise registers in your eyes because once he's done bitching about the salt in his wounds he frowns at you and croaks, "What?"

You purse your lips in contemplation and shake your head slowly. Those words are not your own. Those are borrowed, spoken to you a long time ago by someone fragile, hollow, and broken, and you did not return them. Because fragile, hollow, and broken things do not appeal to you, never have, especially in the face of something as loud and angry and curious and damaged as the soaking wet stray dog-paddling under his own power now beside you.

Tokitoh is the only person you've ever known that has brought those words to the forefront of your memory, but you can't say them. They aren't yours. And if every other word that falls from your lips on a daily basis is a half-truth, a part-lie, you don't want those words to be illegitimate. You speak in riddles and abstract concepts but Tokitoh is very fucking real, like a grade schooler once reminded you, and the fierce protective, possessive _something_ that pounds like your heartbeat in your ears is real. You can't bring yourself to voice it aloud, but you think that if love were real and not the presence of certain biological chemicals in your head or the naive and idealistic falsehoods uttered in soap operas, you would love Tokitoh.

As it stands now Kou is slowing down to drift beside you and reaching over the side of the boat to haul your tired and angry cat out of the water, so you clamber over after him and lay sprawled and dripping and exhausted on the floor, propping yourself up against the low wall at the rear because even in your half-dead and waterlogged state you can't stop your tired eyes from straining and scanning the dark night sky. Kou doesn't ask any questions, and neither do you when Tokitoh half-crawls over to you and collapses in your lap, glove squelching with water as he clings desperately to your wet shirt. He's covered in rancid seawater, blood, vomit, sweat. You don't hesitate to pull him closer.

You stumble off of the dock and through the streets of Yokohama with your Glock in one hand and Tokitoh in the other, and right now you couldn't give a fuck less that people are staring at you like you're crazy. Maybe you are. As long as the beaten and bleeding kid beside you keeps holding onto your hand like it's a fucking lifeline you don't care. He's alive. The Izumo youth gang is not. That's really all that matters. Kou watches you in his peripheral vision as you all three move like shadows through the dark streets and alleys where you thrive, and the knowing flash in his eyes tell you that there will be questions later, but not now.

You're back at the Toukohan before you realize it, and Kou frets over the state that you're both in. He herds you into a back room and demands that wet clothing come off immediately to be replaced with dry, and you don't have the energy to argue. Tokitoh hesitates, eying the good doctor warily, but Kou's helpful hands motivate him enough to scurry behind you and he strips in record time, slinging his jeans at Kou to keep him at bay. He struggles into clean, dry jeans and a sweatshirt and as you drop your own pants to the floor with a wet thud and pull on a new pair you stop fumbling with the fly and stare at the sickeningly livid bruises covering Tokitoh's scrawny torso.

They beat the shit out of him. His chest is a mess of angry purple and blue, red welts and scratches. There are finger-shaped bruises around his slender throat, deep lacerations across his hands pulling down the hem of his sweatshirt. Kou shakes his head in disgust and turns away, returning to the front of the shop, for medicine and the first aid kit, you guess. You reach out, your own jeans half-zipped and hanging loosely from your lean hips, and still Tokitoh's hands.

"Kubo--" he protests, but you don't honestly give a damn about his modesty when there are thin trails of blood running down his chest and his fingers look like they've been sliced into with-- "Piano wire," he says quietly as you stare down at his slender hands in yours. "Those assholes tied my hands with piano wire so I couldn't get out."

You nod, silently regretting feeling the slightest hint of remorse when you pumped every last one of those Izumo bastards full of hot lead. The less rational half of your mind is concocting a thousand and one ways to torture Sanada into insanity for ordering his men to lay a hand on Tokitoh. You _will_ kill him eventually. Of that you have never been more certain. Right now, though...

"I'm sorry," is what you say. _For letting them hurt you_, is what remains unspoken, because you aren't sure that you're ready to accept full responsibility for what happened tonight. Admitting that you fucked up would mean admitting that you let your guard down and that Izumo got the upper hand on you, and you don't want Tokitoh to spend the rest of his life paranoid and constantly looking over his shoulder. In short, you don't want him to live like you.

"Kubo, you didn't do this to me." His voice is quiet, tired, strained, and you're positive that he probably spent the better portion of his time on that oil tanker screaming and cussing and raising hell, and that thought makes you smile. Even while being interrogated and beaten by the Yakuza your angry little cat put up a fight. Because that's what Tokitoh does; he pushes and shoves and hits and shouts and breaks things until he gets what he wants, what he needs, what he thinks he's entitled to. And you love him for it.

There's that fucking _word _again.

You're tired, you tell yourself. Worn out, injured, and put through the wringer. You need three consecutive days of sleep and an entire bottle of prescription strength aspirin and probably a tetanus shot, and you'll feel better. Your mind is running on fumes right now, your body is running on fucking _prayers_, and that's where this nonsense is coming from. You step back and sit down heavily on a barstool as Kou reappears with his too-familiar first aid kit. You can't help but feel relieved watching as your employer's skilled hands make short work of patching Tokitoh up, even as your cat looks nervously at you across the room. You're in no fit state to be playing nurse right now, and you're so angry about the scars that those wounds are going to leave on him that your own hands are shaking.

You struggle to keep the lead weights of your eyelids open, smiling weakly, reassuringly at Tokitoh, but you've never been this exhausted in your fucking life and eventually you nod off slumped against a counter. Some time later Kou wakes you cautiously, extremely aware of the Glock still held in a white-knuckled grip in your lap. "There's a futon in the loft," he says quietly, inclining his head towards the stairs behind him. You'd never really noticed them before. "I believe I'd rest easier tonight knowing that my employees are safe. I don't quite feel tired myself, and I think the glass out front could use some cleaning."

You smile drowsily at him in sincere gratitude, scratching the side of your head absently with the barrel of your loaded gun. Going back to your own apartment would be incredibly stupid now. Sanada knows damned well where you live, and Kou's shop is probably the most secure place for both of you tonight. Yakuza though your enemies may be, they aren't bold enough to attack a Triad in the middle of Chinatown. Even junkyard dogs have a basic survival instinct.

As you get to your feet Kou sighs and presses something cold and heavy into your hands. You look down and find Tokitoh's gun, and you glance up at the unlicensed doctor. "I wasn't sure if you knew that he had it. I..." He smiles sadly. You've never seen Kou at a loss for elegant words. "I just can't imagine him with a weapon," is all that he says, but you know that's not all that he means. He's simply too polite to speak his mind, but you appreciate that for what it is.

_I never thought that you would let him near a gun._

You sigh and shake off that train of thought. As you climb the narrow ladder into the tiny loft you pause to allow your tired eyes to adjust to the lack of light up here. Tokitoh is sprawled across the mattress and you are always amazed at how such a small, scrawny kid can take up so much damned space all by himself. You shove him over gently, ignoring his habitual slurred curses, and you place your Glock on the well-worn wooden floor beside the mattress. Your glasses follow.

In his sleep, he rolls into you, his arms snaking around your bare waist. He nuzzles into the damp ponytail at the base of your skull and mutters into your ear. "Kubo-chan?"

The smile that takes your lips is also habitual. "Hm?"

"Just making sure it was you," he murmurs. You chuckle at his childish antics but twist around in his arms until you're facing him. His lower lip is split, his right cheekbone bruised, and he'll have a spectacular black eye in the morning, but he's still alive and drawing breath and you kiss him briefly before letting your eyes fall closed.

His breathing is evening out into the deep rhythms of sleep to which you are accustomed. You rest your forehead against his and sigh. "I love you, Tokitoh," you mumble, because you're positive that he's asleep and you can deny ever having said it later and you know that your quiet confession is true. You feel relieved for having said it.

"I know you do, Kubo-chan," he breathes, and it startles you. "I know." His arms tighten around your waist. You stare at him in astonishment but he is still very much asleep. And even while unconscious to the world he can tell that you'd kill thirty more people to protect him, to save him. This gorgeous creature understands how deep the bond between you runs, how much you've come to depend on each other. Tokitoh got it before you could sort these raw emotions out for yourself. He takes everything in stride, at face value, and he doesn't lie.

So when he leans up and murmurs that he loves you against your chapped lips you know that he's telling the truth. And you feel guilty because you know that you've taught him this dysfunctional concept, and that no one else will ever be able to care about him quite the way that you do. No one else will kill indiscriminately for him, take on the Yakuza for him, fight practically suicidal odds to keep him safe. No one else will hold his right hand without flinching, deal weapons and drugs to feed him, or gamble their own pathetic lives on him.

You know that you have to stay alive for him, and that's probably the hardest thing that anyone has ever asked you to do.


	3. Beretta 3

Disclaimer: Kazuya Minekura owns Wild Adapter. I do not.

Warnings: Language, violence.

Note: I think I may have managed to develop a plot. If I didn't then I apologize. There's a damned good reason why I normally stick to one-shots. Please review or PM me and let me know what you like, what you don't, or just send me suggestions for the plot. I suck at this.

**Beretta 3**

brkstrtrcr

June 2009

Morning comes with a rush of disorientation and mild panic as you open tired eyes to find walls the wrong color and Tokitoh's warmth missing.

It takes a moment for you to squint through the hazy light filtering in from the barred and curtained window above your makeshift bunk and remember that this is not your apartment. You fumble blindly for your glasses on the wooden floor beside the mattress and shove them up the bridge of your nose to scan the tiny room for your cat, but you and your Glock are alone.

The rickety, narrow stairs groan in protest to the speed with which you descend them, skipping the last three to fall into a crouch at their base and your loaded gun precedes you out of the cluttered back room of the Toukohan and into the main shop. Kou arches an elegant eyebrow at you before you swivel to scan the storefront and your sights land on Tokitoh.

He's sitting cross-legged on the small couch in the lobby of the shop, hunched down over... something. You lower the barrel of your weapon and slip it into the waistband of your jeans at the small of your back. You hate yourself for the sense of relief that floods your mind as you turn away from your roommate and approach your employer.

The blinds are all drawn on the storefront's windows today, and you know that he's closed. The Toukohan normally stays open well past the hour of night when respectable citizens are at home with their families, but today it will not deal in drugs and weapons and information. It actually brings a wry smile to your lips that Kou would rather lose business than risk your safety.

"Good morning," he smiles, but there is no mirth in his voice. It's the cold, hard edge of your favorite serrated boot knife. You sit down across the counter from him.

"Had any visitors, today?" you ask casually, but the dangerous flash in your eyes speaks volumes to him. You knew damned well that Sanada would look for you here, because it wouldn't have been the first time that he went through your Chinese friend to get to you.

"No visitors," he sighs. "But I did receive a gift."

Your own eyebrow arches and you watch him reach under the counter. He places a cell phone on the glass case beside your elbow and slides it over to you. It's small, compact, and lightweight--the sort of device you normally avoid because of the hazards associated with your job. When you open it your name is printed across the top of the digital screen and a picture of a cat adorns the background.

A picture of a very dead cat.

Your insides churn like meat through a grinder as you open the phone's contact list and find a single entry with your former boss' name, and something ignites in your chest, explodes in your mind. Tokitoh almost died last night, struck down by a well-aimed bullet meant for you, for Komiya, for any of the other disposable and faceless ghosts that haunt the streets of Yokohama after dusk. You deserve to die with your guts splattered across cold, dirty asphalt under an impersonal grey sky; Tokitoh shouldn't have to die that way.

It infuriates you beyond measure and sense, and you turn from Kou and the counter and rational thought and slam the phone down against the wooden floor beneath your bare feet while choking back an enraged curse. Tokitoh jumps at the unexpected noise and whips around, staring over the back of the couch at you, and for a long moment all that you can hear is your elevated heartbeat, your ragged breathing, and all that you can see are his beautiful violet eyes.

The tangled emotions warring with your intellectual mind make you want to break bone, to burn buildings to their foundations, to murder indiscriminately. You think in that brief moment that you could kill Sanada with your bare hands and you still wouldn't feel satisfied. Torture and terror aren't good enough anymore, and maybe the only thing that could do justice to the living hell that he's made your lives into would be to beat, rape, and murder his loved ones in front of him.

But Sanada doesn't love anyone other than himself. He doesn't understand how much it hurts, the tricks it plays on your otherwise logical thoughts, the monster you've become because of it. You're at your most lethal and dangerous where that damned cat is concerned, and Sanada won't be content until he kills it.

You know deep in your heart, in places that you normally ignore with all of your will, that if Tokitoh died tonight you would kill every Izumo in this wretched city and then yourself. This has become a mutually-assured destruction, this little dance between you and Sanada. And you doubt that he's realized just how deadly this game has gotten.

"Kubo-chan?"

His voice is quiet, almost hesitant, and you raise your hazel eyes from the metal and plastic at your feet to his face and wonder why the _fuck_ you picked this kid up and brought him home and fell in love with him, with his contagious smile and stupid laugh and razor-sharp claws. Why does your stomach knot when he breathes your name? Why do you feel so content when you sit beside him in front of the TV and run your fingers through his hair? Why does it become exponentially easier to pull the trigger when you're threatened with losing him?

"I need to call Kasai," you tell no one in particular and take a deep, shaking breath to calm yourself. You head into the back room to find Kou's store phone. The only way to survive this--all of you--is for you to remain calm and rational and--

Your train of thought derails and crashes in a fiery burst of what-the-fuck as Tokitoh's scrawny form collides with yours and shoves you unceremoniously into the wall, pinning you with hands on either side of your head and bruising pressure against your lips.

And you can't formulate a plan of attack when he's touching you. He sneaks up on you constantly, and you're fairly certain that he isn't stealthy on purpose considering how accident-prone he can be. You don't protest as he forces your head back against the wall and takes your hips hard enough to leave bruises and presses you together from your locked lips to your buckling knees.

It isn't desperation fueling his almost violent claiming of you. It's something stronger, something that tastes like reckless confidence in your mouth, feels like alpha dominance against your hips, sounds like the last of your resolve crumbling as he mutters into your ear, "It isn't me that he wants, is it?" But it isn't a question. He's showing you that he understands what's been happening for the last few weeks a hell of a lot better than you first assumed, and at the same time Tokitoh is telling you where he stands on the matter. You belong to your cat, always have, and he'll fight spitting and hissing, claws extended and fangs barred to maintain his sovereignty over you.

At the end of the day you never had control over your life once you took him in. And if you swallow your pride and get really dirty and honest with yourself then you lost your free will in this lifetime the day that Ark Royals gained a new meaning to you, mutated from cigarette brand to subtle, deceptive mortality. The Yakuza, Komiya, Sanada, Tokitoh control your life like the moon dictates the tides, and what you do now doesn't matter. What matters is that you do it.

It's a fatalistic approach to a life for which you never asked, but you don't pretend to know how it's going to play out. You know that you'll fight the good fight, shed your criminal skin and step into the role of defender, protector, but the fierce creature pinning you against this wall never really needed your knight-in-shining-armor ass to begin with, did he? Tokitoh just needed someone to show him how to use those angry kitten claws and point him in the right direction. That knowledge doesn't make this surrender to the inevitable--to your guts strewn across the sidewalk and your heart laying in pieces at his feet--any easier.

Your hands find his shoulders, thin and sharp, and you push him away. The flash of bruised ego in his eyes isn't lost on you but it isn't as important as the way his nails dig into the well-worn denim covering your hips. He smiles at you in a sad, wry kind of way that you aren't accustomed to seeing on his handsome face and shoves you bodily against the wall. You shoulders hit the wood paneling with a loud thud and he rests his forehead against yours. "Mine," he hisses softly, biting into your lower lip.

You've never seen this side of him before, but then again he's never killed anyone before; the only constant in your life, besides Sanada's relentless pursuit, is change, and that means that the comfortable undefined relationship that you two have shared up until now has shifted. Tokitoh is growing up. The thought brings a mirthless smile to your lips.

"What's funny?" he asks quietly. His lips are inches from yours but you resist the urge to close that distance.

"Who's the pervert now?" you chuckle, and the automatic blush that tints his face a creative shade of red widens your grin. He rolls his eyes and shoves away from you and mutters 'Stupid Kubo-chan' under his breath before circling around to glare at you.

From the main room of the store you hear Kou rummaging through boxes. Tokitoh leans against the table opposite you, folds his arms over his narrow chest, and sighs. "So what's the plan?" You shake your head and gaze back at him.

"I'm out. Any suggestions?"

"Yeah, you two are leaving the country if you know what's good for you."

Tokitoh's hand is reaching to the small of his back as fast as your own, but you recognize Kasai's prematurely grey hair and face before either gun is aimed in his general direction. You reach out and take your partner's wrist carefully, pushing him back and away. Your uncle shakes his head in exasperation and leans against the doorway, lit cigarette hanging from his frowning mouth, and he looks at you with a raised eyebrow before turning to Tokitoh. "You okay, Toki-boy?"

Your cat nods and stuffs the Beretta back into his belt before running a hand through his hair. You note with mild concern that his hands are shaking. Kasai's tired grey eyes pivot to you and he looks like he hasn't slept in days. After the little falling out that you two had in this very room three days ago--your jaw is still fucking sore from that right hook--you're positive that he knows about the oil tanker and the dozens of corpses you made there. You don't feel an ounce of regret.

"Makoto, you guys are in some deep shit. I got called to your apartment an hour ago to identify a body." You nod and ignore the wide eyes that Tokitoh turns on you. As a former Yakuza you expected this. Sanada probably had his men ransack your place for any shred of information they could find before torching the place. As far as the body...? "Someone must have noticed them breaking in and shot him, because the stiff we found isn't Yakuza. He's one of your neighbors. These bastards really don't care about staying under the radar anymore."

Kou has drifted quietly to stand behind Kasai and you're glad that he's listening. These three people are the only ones breathing in Yokohama that you trust, and you know damned well that it will take your combined efforts to come up with a plan of action here. "You need to get the hell out of here while they're still scrambling to find you," your uncle stresses.

You chuckle darkly. "They already know where we are."

"Sanada sent a package here for Kubota-kun this morning," Kou confirms.

Kasai sighs and rubs his temples wearily. "Should I even ask what it was?"

You glance sideways at Tokitoh before responding. "A joke in poor taste."

No one asks you to clarify that cryptic statement, and that's probably just as well. "What can I do to help?" your uncle asks. He's never openly offered his assistance before. It helps to put your plight into perspective for you.

You understand several things in that moment of awkward silence. First, there really isn't a damned thing that a police inspector can do, now. You don't want to involve him anyway. Second, leaving the city, or even the country, won't change your situation. As sure as you are that Tokitoh would follow you to hell and back you know that Sanada has virtually inexhaustible resources and a possessive streak to match your cat's, however misguided. He'll track you down and bring you back, and you've never left Yokohama. Shadowy and decrepit it may be, but this city is your playground.

You cannot wipe out the entire Izumo, as tempting a prospect as that might seem. You cannot hide out in the tiny attic over Kou's shop indefinitely either. Sanada will come for you eventually, Triads be damned. So your only remaining viable options are to hand Tokitoh over or sacrifice yourself the way that Komiya did for his mother. Rejoin the Yakuza to protect Tokitoh.

You smile grimly at your uncle. "Arrest Tokitoh."

Kasai looks at you like you've announced your intentions to join the Catholic priesthood. Beside you your cat looks mutinous. "Makoto, have you lost your fucking mind?"

Kou smiles silently in understanding. He's followed your train of thought precisely. He always does. "It's the only way to keep him safe," he says quietly. "The Yakuza will come here when they grow impatient of waiting for Kubota-kun to leave, but they aren't stupid enough to break into a police station."

Your uncle glares at you incredulously. "And while I've got Toki-boy under lock and key what are you going to do? Skip town?" He rubs his palm over his eyes and fumes. "I'm a detective, not a babysitter."

"I don't need a fucking babysitter! Kubo-chan, what the hell are you planning?!" Tokitoh rounds on you angrily and hits you hard in the chest with his good hand. "I've been through hell the last three days and you're shipping me off to jail?!"

You wrench Tokitoh's arms behind his back and drop him bodily to the floor, ignoring his swearing and rather graphic threats and turn to Kasai. "He just committed misdemeanor assault in your presence. Arrest him."

Kasai stares at you incredulously, his brain processing this new line of reasoning. This is the favor you've never asked of him, and now it really fucking matters. If ever he had a chance to atone for not being the best parental figure, it would be now. You don't look away from him; you need him to understand just how god damned important this is. Tokitoh has to be protected, because behind his loud mouth and cocky attitude and claws and fangs, Sanada would break him without hesitation.

_Please_, you mouth to him as Tokitoh thrashes under you on the floor, testing the limits of your strength, and you're so very fucking tired. This is the end of the line. If this doesn't work...

If this doesn't work then you'll kill Tokitoh yourself, because that heinous crime would be more merciful than whatever fate the Yakuza would mete out to your stray. And at the end of the day, Kasai has grown very attached to this little cat. You all have.

"I can't _believe _I'm doing this," he sighs, but he pulls his handcuffs from his belt and the metallic clink around both of Tokitoh's thin captive wrists sounds like hope. He hauls your roommate up and mutters at him to stop struggling because you all know those flimsy steel cuffs can't contain him.

Tokitoh's violet eyes are angry as he stares at you, his arms locked behind him and his lips set in an angry snarl that you can't bring yourself to kiss. Not here, not now. You've put him through so much just to keep air in his lungs and life in his body. Maybe he would have been better off dead, you think. Maybe.

"Be good," you smile weakly at him.

"Fuck you!"

Kasai raises his eyebrows at you over Tokitoh's shoulder and sighs. "Don't get yourself killed, Makoto," he warns. Then he's dragging your enraged cat out of the shop and to his unmarked cruiser, muttering something that sounds like 'I'm too old for this shit.' You follow him to the threshold of the Toukohan, peering through the blinds at his taillights disappearing down the street and Tokitoh frowning back at the store from the backseat.

Kou is pulling weapons from boxes when you turn away from the window. "When will you meet with him?" he asks quietly, all-business. You smile. Good old Kou.

"Tonight."

Your employer nods. "And what if he won't take you back into the Izumo?"

"He will. I heard they're recruiting a new Youth Gang because their old one was lost at sea." This witty, playful exchange is helping your mind back into the frame it will need to handle Sanada. It's been a very long time.

"And if he gives you his word that Tokitoh won't be harmed? How can you trust him?"

Your smile is dangerous and cold. "I can't." You pick up one of the new weapons on the case in front of your Chinese friend and examine it carefully. 'Sig Sauer .40 cal' shines up at you from the slide. It's lighter than your Glock, heavier than the Beretta. You slide it into your back pocket. "But at least I'll be able to keep a good eye on him."

"Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer?" Kou laughs. "Kubota-kun, what will you do I wonder if Sanada asks for more from you than you can give?"

Your smile widens. Take my life, you think to yourself. Take my home, my friends, my freedom. Sanada consumes everything in his path like a ravenous beast. A monster. But you have faith in your own abilities, confidence in your own ingenuity. The only other thing that he could ask for now belongs to someone else. And you're fairly certain that you would much rather Tokitoh stand vigilant guard over that aspect of yourself than let Sanada's filthy presence near it.

"I'll deal with that as it comes, I suppose," you reply after a moment. Then you sit down and begin the therapeutic process of cleaning your gun.


	4. Beretta 4

Disclaimer: Kazuya Minekura owns Wild Adapter. I do not.

Warning: Language and general ick.

Note: Writing this made me sick to my stomach. I'm not sure why yet.

**Beretta 4**

brkstrtrcr

June 2009

He almost seems surprised to see you, but then again Sanada isn't easily surprised. Or impressed. Or amused.

He arches an eyebrow at you as he closed the door to his office and doesn't bother to reach for the light switch. You both know that under the glare of the fluorescents you'll find you and him and your gun aimed at his chest, and you think that perhaps you wouldn't hesitate to pull the trigger and end this stupid fucking game he's had you playing for the last two years. And if you shot him now and left him to bleed to death on this expensive carpet he would simply be replaced.

And you wouldn't make it out of this building alive.

You understand that you're still alive today by his grace and mercy, and that knowledge is hard to swallow, but you will because right now it doesn't matter. What matters at this exact heartbeat in time is the cruel smile on his lips and the Glock in your hand and this business proposition that you've brought him.

"Kubota-kun, to what do I owe the pleasure of this little rendezvous?" he purrs, his voice velvet-covered barbed wire.

You don't return his smile. "I heard that you needed a new youth group leader."

Sanada's eyes flash with anger but it's quickly suppressed. He'll never lose his temper in front of you. It just isn't his style. "Actually I'm in need of a new youth group. All forty-three of my men were involved in a rather unfortunate debacle at sea. It appears that there is some truth to the myths of a monster in Yokohama Bay."

That does bring a quirk to your lips. You lean back in his leather desk chair and stretch your legs out under his desk. As long as he remembers that he baited that monster out of its lair, perhaps you do have some leverage here now. You want desperately for him to stop underestimating you and fully comprehend that you are capable of destroying Izumo single-handedly. It isn't a desire born of a need to be respected but a need to ensure Tokitoh's relative safety.

"Funny coincidence, that. It seems that I need something from you."

The tension in the air is thick enough to choke on but you won't bring yourself to look away from him. He's probably one of the only people you've ever encountered who can actually spark real nervous apprehension in you. You're almost positive that he knows it. "What," he drawls in amusement, closing the distance between you until he's standing just on the other side of his desk, leaning against the polished oak surface with his palms, "Could you possibly need from me, Kubota-kun?"

You decide that you don't like the way that you name rolls so easily off of his tongue, or the superior expression etched into his handsome face. You've come to admire Tokitoh's infectious grin and his almost-whiny 'Kubo-chan' much more.

Ignoring this, you lay your gun down on the desk and lean back in his chair and sigh up at the ceiling. "I need to reach some manner of agreement with you."

Sanada nods as if this makes perfect sense and sits down on the edge of his desk. "Concerning what?"

"My cat." You notice the barely perceptible frown that creases his forehead and the way that he snorts rudely. You decline to comment though.

"Ah, Kubota-kun, I haven't forgotten your fondness for animals. It does seem, however, that you've forgotten how things are done in the Izumo. One can't simply murder forty or so of my employees, break into my office, and then start asking for favors."

The threat in his voice is very real but it doesn't scare you. Sanada is, after all, only one man, and he bleeds the same color as you. He's mortal, just like you. In the end he'll die just like you. "When I left Izumo I did everything that you asked of me," you remind him gently. "You brought this to my doorstep."

"Indeed I did. But you have something critical to this organization's future endeavors, and it's my job to ensure that we have every advantage over Tojou. Sekiya went after your cat first, did he not? It was only a matter of time before they stole him right out from under our noses and then where would we be?"

The man has a point. It doesn't do much to lessen the homicidal impulse that floods through you when he leans across the desk and smiles at you, but the man has a point. "Kubota-kun, I won't deny that I was very disappointed when you left us, and this little cat-and-mouse game that we've been playing for the last two and a half years has been very entertaining, but I didn't order my men to kidnap your pet out of spite. It was necessary."

You don't bother to suppress the wry, dangerous smile that curves your lips. Necessary to bind his hands with piano wire? Necessary to beat him so badly that he passed out? To drug him and torture him and shoot at him and scar him for the rest of his life? Perhaps you've lost touch with the Yakuza definition of the word, but none of that seems necessary. Then again, you are a little biased.

"That's neither here nor there," Sanada sighs. "You came here today because you needed something from me. I'm going to be rude and assume that you are seeking my word that I will not harm your cat?"

You nod and hold his gaze and wonder why he's being so fucking pleasant about this whole thing. You half-expected him to shoot you on sight, but then again you've come to understand that you and Sanada have a lot more in common than you're really comfortable thinking about, and perhaps he never intended on killing you at all. You're a challenge to him, and in a business where resistance is met with bullets and knives a challenge as difficult as you doesn't present itself very often.

"And what can you offer in exchange?" he asks smoothly. He moves around the desk carefully, never taking his eyes off of you, and stops between your sprawled legs, pulling you closer with one hand on the back of the chair. Two years ago you were entirely apathetic to this man's advances, but now Sanada's proximity triggers a revulsion in you that burns like bile in the back of your throat. A lot can happen in two years. Tokitoh happened in two years.

"My word that I won't kill anymore of your men," you say quietly.

He leans closer and you can smell the vanilla on his breath, on the expensive suit he's wearing. "Not good enough," he chuckles.

Your only advantage right now is that you could break his neck in less than three seconds if you had to, and that knowledge allows you to sit by passively as he runs one hand through your hair and tilts your head up so that he can look at your face in the ambient city light filtering in through the enormous picture window behind his desk. "I want your loyalty," he breathes against your lips. "You were such a good dog before you left. Obedient mutts are hard to find these days."

He's mocking you quietly, trying to get a rise out of you, but these subtle jabs at your lineage and your pride aren't as important as what you came here to do. "What do you say, Kubota-san?" he kisses you. "Are you my dog?"

You can just imagine the look of shock and anger on Tokitoh's face if he ever finds out about this. You aren't in the habit of keeping things from him, but this is one of those random incidents that you will take to grave. It seems that you're making a habit of letting men assault you today. "Whatever you say, boss," you murmur against Sanada's lips.

The leader of Izumo pulls away. He looks down on you with something approaching pity in his eyes and smiles. "He's really that important to you, Kubota?"

It takes you a moment to register that he didn't use that annoying little nickname of his, and for a moment you think that he's serious. And when he doesn't smile and make another clever remark you're sure that he's actually interested in this foreign concept of you caring for anything. But you aren't interested in sharing your fucking feelings with him. So you meet his eyes and keep your mouth shut and wait for him to take the hint.

"I see," is all that he says before kissing you again briefly and standing to his full height. Sanada is a handsome and well-spoken man, but his hands are dirty and his soul is black. At the end of the day he has nothing that interests you but many qualities that make you nauseous. "I suppose then that it's safe for you to have your uncle release him from the police station."

You aren't surprised that he knows exactly where you sent Tokitoh. The Yakuza has eyes and ears everywhere. "Your apartment won't be touched again. I'll give my men orders to stay out of your way." He turns from straightening his tie and shakes his head, sighing. "I am going to need a little display of trust from you, though."

You arch an eyebrow at Sanada. "You'll be marked as an Izumo. My secretary will make the arrangements. And I want to speak with your cat."

Every fiber of your being screams out in protest to this. You want Sanada near Tokitoh like you want a bullet in your head. This man is dangerous. So is your roommate. "Only in my presence, and I'll warn you now that he has a nasty temper," you smile to hide your apprehension.

Sanada reaches for the doorknob to his office and chuckles. "So am I, Kubota-kun. So am I." He leaves as quietly as he came, closing the door behind himself and not bothering to ask you to leave. You let out a deep breath and stare up at the ceiling for a moment before getting to your feet and exiting the dark room. You feel like you just made a pact with the devil. Perhaps you did.

His secretary is waiting for you when you approach her desk, eying you warily. You note with no small amount of amusement that she recognizes you from your murderous rampage through this very office five days ago. The walls have been repainted and the carpets replaced, but the lobby still carries that metallic tang of blood in the air. She hands you an envelope and a small cellular phone before closing the glass divider with a shaking hand.

You wave at her and shove the phone into your jeans pocket before opening the red envelope. Inside you find a stack of cash, a business card to a tattoo parlor in Chinatown, and the phone number and address of a restaurant near your apartment. Your pay, your mark, and your new office.

As you exit the building and duck out onto the street you loosen your grip around your gun in your pocket and fish out a cigarette. You want the taste of Ark Royals out of your mouth, but as you light the Seven Star between your lips you think that maybe even Tokitoh might not be enough to drive out the vanilla on your tongue and the bile in your throat and the shame crawling under your skin.


	5. Beretta 5

Disclaimer: Kazuya Minekura owns Wild Adapter. I do not.

Warning: Language, violence, and if I have to mention shonen-ai again then you obviously haven't been reading up until now...

Note: Shorter chapters are obviously faster to get out, but the next one might be a bit longer. I'm also considering changing the narration from second-person Kubota's POV to first-person. It might sound strange though. Tell me what you think.

**Beretta 5**

brkstrtrcr

June 2009

Tokitoh is fucking furious.

He's staring out at you from between the bars on the screen door to the interrogation room, fuming. The look in his violet eyes screams certain death if you come near him, and it reminds you ironically of the day that he woke up in your bedroom, scared and confused and violent. You suppose that's a mildly appropriate metaphor for this day; you're both walking into a new life today.

Kasai is giving you his quiet 'what the hell happened' look, dragging on his cigarette as you both enter the interrogation room. You note with no small amount of amusement that he chose the most heavily fortified room in the entire station house in which to keep your roommate: five inch brick walls, no windows, four locks on the outside. It's enough to keep Yakuza out and an angry cat within. He pushes inside past you and motions for Tokitoh to come out, but your mate isn't budging.

"Fuck him," he growls. "I'll fucking stay here."

You sigh and walk into the room, squatting down in front of him where he's sitting on a cot and you offer him a smile. "Tokitoh, you can't live in a police station," you argue gently, because your patience for his temper and his antics is veritably inexhaustible. "We can go home now."

He bristles at your tone, your smile. "Oh, so now all of a fucking sudden it's safe?! You left me in a cage for a day! What could you have possibly fucking done _overnight _that makes it all better?!"

Your guts roil at his words, at his implication. There's a palpable threat of violence in the air as he glares at you now, and he's never looked at you like this before.

Like you're guilty, dirty, less than who he thought you were. Like you're no better than the nameless thugs and hired guns that you've murdered in bloodbath after bloodbath while protecting him.

Like you're no different than the people who fucked him into being what he is today.

And something in you breaks and shatters and it _hurts_. Hurts so badly that you react without thinking, without regard to where you are or who is watching, and you slap Tokitoh across his face with the back of your hand the way your whore of a mother hit you, the way Komiya hit his mother, the way Sanada hits his dog.

It makes you feel in control, like a man. That is, until Tokitoh lunges up from the cot dead-set on breaking more than just your arm, and Kasai drops his cigarette and attempts to jump into the fray and pull the two of you apart, and as you try valiantly to pry your roommate's good hand off of your throat and breath you think that perhaps allowing you into a police station with a loaded weapon was a bad decision on your uncle's part.

"Tokitoh, let go of him!" Kasai shouts, trying to drag this angry little cat off of your chest. "You're going to strangle him!"

"Good!" Tokitoh growls. The feral rage in his eyes is intoxicating, and after a moment you stop fighting back and you start hating yourself for what you've turned him into. And you understand in that second that he would have been better off dead. You should have left him in that alley, barely breathing and half-starved, and allowed nature to take its course. You intervened, tried to salvage what wasn't yours to take, and this is what happens when you meddle.

If he wants to murder you then so be it. You'd much rather die by his bare hands than watch your entrails splatter across some dark street. He won't survive a day without you and maybe that will set things straight. Your error in taking him in will be canceled out if he kills you. Yes, that makes perfect sense. Or maybe oxygen deprivation has addled your brain and you aren't thinking clearly.

"...fucking hate you," he's muttering as he slams your head back into the linoleum floor, tears and pain in his eyes, and Kasai is trying desperately to pry him off of you. "I wish I'd never met you! You're just as bad as the rest of them!"

You smile weakly at him and close your eyes and wait for the end of air, of breathing, of everything, and Kasai's shout over Tokitoh's enraged ranting, the single word 'Minoru', sounds like a gunshot. Your attacker freezes over you. The hand around your throat disappears suddenly. Tokitoh collapses against your chest shaking and wide-eyed. Kasai looks very guilty, but relieved nonetheless.

"Sorry," your uncle mutters as he kneels beside you and looks cautiously at Tokitoh, but your cat is clinging to you like a lifeline, staring at the front of your tear-soaked shirt and trembling. It was a dirty trick on Kasai's part but you appreciate it anyway. You both know what it does to him.

You don't bother to inspect the damage to your neck--you deserve it for slapping the shit out of him. You sit up, holding Tokitoh firmly to your chest, and you comb your fingers through his dirty hair and rock him back and forth. You've done this so many damned times that it's almost instinct now, like so many other things about him, and you aren't embarrassed by the way he fists his claws onto your shirt or cries silently into your throat or throws his other arm around your neck and just holds onto you as tightly as he knows how.

Kasai has never been an unfortunate observer to one of Tokitoh's episodes, but today he is. He sits down in one of the folding chairs beside the table and folds his hands, elbows on his knees, and watches with a look of pity on his tired old face. And in reality, you're all three tired, stressed out, and under pressure right now. Tokitoh has been put through hell in the last week, but you've been so busy trying to keep him breathing that you've ignored your own exhaustion. You always will. Kasai's blood content is probably fifty percent caffeine, has been for as long as you can remember, but coffee doesn't do anything to take the edge off of the worry you saw in his frown when you told him that Tokitoh had been taken, or the concern in his grey eyes now.

Sanada can wait. The Izumo can wait. The discussion that you know you must have with these two and Kou can wait. Right now you just want Tokitoh to stop running in his mind from whatever it is that he sees when he collapses like this, half-paralyzed with fear. He's normally so loud, so spirited, so confident, and seeing him like this makes you sick to your stomach the way that Sanada's touch does. So you close your eyes and take a deep breath and press your lips to Tokitoh's temple and wait for the shaking to subside, for the silent tears to stop, for the terror to drain from his beautiful, wet eyes. For a good long while, you just hold him.

"Is he okay?" Kasai finally asks quietly.

You look down at your partner and nod. His eyes are closed now, his breath hitching every now and then on a small sob, but you're pretty sure he's asleep. You wipe the tear tracks from his cheek. "It normally only lasts ten minutes or so," you sigh. "It happens a lot."

Your uncle nods slowly. "Why did you hit him?"

It isn't meant as a reprimand but his words still sting. Because it's true. You just lashed out in anger and struck the one person in Yokohama who has been beaten enough to last a lifetime, the only person you swore you'd never hit. "I don't know," you answer truthfully.

An awkward silence falls between you. Kasai seems to be watching for some sign that he permanently damaged your cat, but you know that isn't the case. Tokitoh was permanently damaged when you found him, and realistically there isn't much that anyone can do at this point to fuck him in the head more efficiently. Maybe that's a good thing.

"Things went well with Sanada?" Kasai asks in an undertone, glancing over his shoulder.

You nod. "As well as can be expected. But he wants to interrogate Tokitoh."

Your uncle stares at you incredulously. "You're shitting me? You _agreed_ to that?!"

Your lack of response as you run one hand up and down the ridges of Tokitoh's spine is answer enough for your uncle. He runs a hand through his hair in frustration and stands from his chair, pacing the east wall of the room. "I had no choice," you say softly, and you wonder when you started justifying your actions to other people.

Kasai chuckles dryly. "I guess not. I'm assuming that you're the new youth group leader?"

"Yeah."

Tokitoh mumbles something unintelligible into your throat and pulls himself closer to you with the arm around your neck. You smile. It's a habit where he's concerned. And as long as Sanada and Izumo don't touch so much as a hair on his head again you'll be their loyal junkyard dog again without batting an eyelash. After all, you made a pact with him.

"Let's get him out of here and back home. You both need a fucking shower," Kasai mutters. He heads out of the room and out of sight, and you sigh before standing and pull Tokitoh up with you. He raises his head from your shoulder and blinks groggily around the room, but he doesn't protest this time when you pull away and take his hand and lead him towards the exit. Instead he rubs his eyes with his leather-covered knuckles and follows docile and submissive behind you.

And as you walk past desks and copiers and curious police officers Tokitoh mutters, "I'm sorry" into your ear. You smile at him. Outside Kasai is waiting in his unmarked cruiser, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. You shove Tokitoh into the backseat and climb into the passenger seat, fumbling for your cigarettes. The smoke and burning in your lungs makes it easier to think about what lies ahead of you with Izumo and Sanada. You still haven't quite managed to get that taste out of your mouth.

Kasai is preoccupied with cursing under his breath about the traffic when Tokitoh's voice is suddenly in your ear from behind you. "I don't hate you," he grumbles quietly.

You turn your head to glance back at him and he's got this brooding expression on his face that makes your lips quirk at the corner. He's trying to apologize for the things he said out of anger, but he doesn't need to. "I don't hate me either," you quip.

He sighs in exasperation and mutters, "Stupid Kubo-chan" before leaning forward and kissing you awkwardly around your seat's headrest. His lips are firm against yours, warm and soft and real, and you forget about Ark Royals for a moment. You think that Tokitoh tastes like a life that you never asked for and a loyalty stronger than any junkyard dog's.

You pull back only when Kasai turns away from traffic and threatens to strangle you himself for 'making out in government property', and even after Tokitoh's lips leave yours that slightly dizzy, invincible feeling lingers, just like the satisfied smile on his handsome face.

This is worth fighting for, his fingers lacing with yours around the back of your seat and the contagious grin that steals across your face. The conviction in your chest is stronger than the dread in your gut, and that's all that matters.


	6. Beretta S

Disclaimer: Kazuya Minekura owns Wild Adapter. I do not.

Warning: Language, sexual content.

Note: This chapter is honestly stand-alone. It isn't necessary for the advancement of the story, but I felt like writing it. Also, I had to change the rating of the story to M from T, so if you don't see it on the WA page check your Ratings filter.

**Beretta S**

brkstrtrcr

June 2009

Your apartment looks like something out of a goddamned horror movie.

You hold up the crime scene tape still crossing your front door and let Tokitoh duck inside. You immediately regret that decision. There's blood dried to the wooden floor of your living room and scarlet gore splattered up one of the white plaster walls, and you know without asking that he's thinking the exact thing you're thinking, that one day your apartment will look like this when he explodes across the walls.

It's not a thought that either of you want to chew on for very long.

You step over what's left of your coffee table, the smashed remains of the Playstation, and make your way into the bedroom. Tokitoh follows you like a second shadow. The mattress has been thrown to the floor and cut open, your books strewn about, and you aren't surprised to find the hard drive to your computer missing. It doesn't matter. You came here to collect what few belongings you actually need: clothing, toothbrushes, weapons.

Ten minutes later you're crawling back under the yellow police tape with a trash bag over your shoulder, Tokitoh scurrying out behind you, and you pause to pull your name plate off of the front door and drop it down the trash chute before jabbing at the elevator button. Your cat gives you a slightly mournful look as he glances between you and the door to the only home that he's ever known, but you smile and ruffle his hair and nod for him to get into the elevator. You can make a new home as long as you have him. The location isn't that important.

Kasai is waiting downstairs and he helps you load your bag into the trunk of his beat-up cruiser. Tokitoh tosses his backpack crammed with video games and blankets and manga and underwear on top and slams the hatch down before clambering into the back seat. Twenty minutes later you're hauling those belongings into Kou's shop, which is open today.

Your Chinese friend smiles at Tokitoh and offers his assistance and your cat bristles and shies away, running into the back room. It brings a smile to your lips. Some things just don't change. And before Kou and Kasai can start the inquisition that you feel building in the air like a thunderstorm you duck into the back behind Tokitoh.

You need to take a shower. The sea water, blood, and Sanada are clinging to your skin so thick that it's suffocating you, and you want hot water and soap and steam. Tokitoh's no better off. You grab his wrist and pull him into the adjacent room behind the main store where Kou stores all of his illicit merchandise. Behind the boxes and containers there's a small enclosed shower stall and a sink. You saw it for the first time two years ago when Kou patched you up after the incident at the Tojou headquarters, and you pray to a higher power that it still works.

The taps creak in protest as you turn them. The plumbing in here is oxidized rust and older than Kasai, but after several moments of groaning and bubbling you're rewarded with a hot spray. You turn to look at Tokitoh and he's already wrestling his shirt off and fighting with his sneakers. He doesn't normally care for water but like most cats he also desperately hates being dirty. You think for a second that he might fight you for the first shower.

"Quit staring, you pervert," he frowns.

You glance at him and calmly remind him that you've got the same parts, and this isn't the first time you've seen him naked. He punches you half-halfheartedly in the shoulder, mutters "Stupid Kubo-chan", and reaches for your belt.

He fumbles with the buckle for a second or two, but you don't offer any assistance. This is something new. He's never made any overt attempts to encourage your perverted tendencies and you're more than willing to see just how far he takes things. Maybe it's the fact that you want to burn all traces of Sanada from your mind. Maybe it's the fact that you almost lost this kid two days ago. Maybe it's the fact that the way he's biting into his lower lip in frustrated concentration is kicking up your heart rate a few paces.

Now _that's _going to be a problem.

You look away from his face and to his hands, still cut and bruised from those damned piano wires. He manages your belt finally and his fingers move to the button and fly of your jeans. You glance back at his face and the dark blush on his cheeks is priceless. He murdered a man in cold blood less than forty-eight hours ago and he's getting flustered by your jeans?

He happens to glance up at you as he's dragging down your zipper and you can't help but smile incredulously at the embarrassment in his violet eyes. You push him away gently, pull your shirt up over your head, and kick off your pants before snagging him by the front of his shirt and pulling him into your chest to kiss him.

There's no resistance in his thin frame as he braces himself against you with hands on your sides. This is the same Tokitoh that pinned you to the wall yesterday by force, and right now he's blushing furiously because you're pressed against him in your underwear. You chuckle quietly against his mouth and he growls at you. He shoves you back and stomps over to the shower, shucking off his own pants and underwear and ducking into the shower.

You follow him with a grin. The hot water feels wonderful on your skin and you take a moment to soak your hair and let it run into your eyes. You can almost feel the grime running down your legs and into the drain. You squint through steam and water at your unhappy cat and he glares at you from several inches away. "What?" you ask quietly, but your voice echoes around you both anyway.

He reaches out and takes your wrist and pulls until you're holding out the inside of your right forearm and the inflamed, angry red skin and black ink there. Your brand. You'd forgotten about it, but the possessive look in Tokitoh's eyes tells you that he's not going to forget about it any time soon. You want to explain to him that it's necessary, that this mark is his protection, but he doesn't give you time.

Instead he drops your wrist and grabs your hair at the base of your skull and wrenches your head down, kissing you with bruising force. You don't bother to suppress the moan that drags up out of your throat as he presses against you, wet and naked, and your back hits slippery tile. His tongue slicks against your teeth, demanding. His hands pin your hips against the wall of the shower, possessive. He groans low and loud when you take his narrow hips and pull them against yours harshly.

Common sense tells you that Tokitoh doesn't truly understand what's happening between the two of you right now, because you've never explained it to him and he's never asked. You've honestly never had any real interest in it, but now you wish desperately that you would have mentioned it to him sooner. You aren't an expert on the exact mechanics of gay sex any more than you're a rocket scientist; you can infer what goes where based on physiology and the handful of raunchy movies you've seen.

Tokitoh's questionable history is what drags your conscience to the forefront of your mind, however. You're positive that he was abused sexually, but to what extent you aren't sure. And the last thing that you want to do is scare him or hurt him. But he's grinding a pretty impressive erection against your thigh and something tells you that he knows _exactly_ what his teenaged hormones are after.

The slender fingers that he wraps around your dick confirm that, as far as you're concerned. You push into his fist automatically, because it feels too damned good not to and he's still kissing you. Suddenly labels like 'gay' and 'mentally competent' don't matter. What does is the pressure around your cock and the way he's biting your tongue and the incredible pressure coiling in the base of your gut.

You're halfway through contemplating whether it would be morally acceptable to throw him down onto the floor of the shower and fuck him senseless when someone pounds on the door to the storage room and says, "Makoto, can you stop fucking molesting the kid and hurry up?!"

Good old Kasai. If he weren't your uncle, and a cop, you'd shoot him, right now. You're rock hard and dreading the painful experience that this little group discussion will be, and Tokitoh doesn't look any better off. "Fuck him," he growls into your ear, his hips still grinding against yours. "He can wait."

It takes every ounce of self-control you possess to take your roommate by his thin shoulders and push him away an inch or two. "He _will _come in here," you sigh. "We'd better go."

Tokitoh looks mutinous. He puffs out his cheeks in internal debate, and before you can reiterate that your detective uncle won't hesitate to barge right into the shower stall, modesty be damned, your roommate is on his knees in front of you, his lips wrapped around the base of your dick.

"_Fuck_," you mutter, trying valiantly to overcome the instinctive urge to shove yourself down his throat. His eyes are tightly closed in concentration as he pulls back and runs his agile tongue up the underside of your already sensitive erection. You don't know where the hell he learned this--certainly not from you--but it feels absolutely incredible. He establishes an impromptu rhythm quickly and you can do nothing more than lean against the wall and fight to breathe.

His mouth is hot, wet, and your eyes slip closed as you strive to keep your knees from buckling underneath you. After several minutes of you struggling for air and Tokitoh doing the most _obscene_ things with his tongue, you know that you're going to lose it and in your fogged state of mind you aren't sure if you should warn him or not. You make the mistake of looking down at him just in time to register that he's touching himself while giving you the best damned blow job of your young life and his eyes lock with yours, half-lidded and flashing with an emotion that you've never seen there before.

He cries out around your dick in his mouth as he jerks himself to climax, tensing on his knees in front of you. Somewhere between his gasps and the tightening around your dick you lose it. You come down his throat with a choked groan that sounds like his name and slide down the wall of the shower as your knees finally give out.

You don't bother to open your eyes as you find your arms full of Tokitoh. He curls up between your shaking thighs and buries his face in your throat, arms wound around your neck, and sighs. The water still beating down against you both is tepid, almost cool, and he shivers against your stomach--from the temperature of that water or something else entirely, you aren't sure.

When your heart stops hammering against your ribcage and you feel confident in your ability to speak again you kiss the wet hair beneath your chin and open your eyes. "Should I bother to ask where you picked up that little trick?" you ask quietly.

You can _feel _him blush against your shoulder. "TV," he mumbles, and your eyebrows shoot up to your hairline. What in the name of all things holy has he been watching while you're out running deliveries? The dazed, slightly haunted look in his half-lidded violet eyes tells you that maybe TV wasn't his only educator on sexual matters, and you feel indescribably dirty again. Dirty like you did whenever you leave a WA crime scene. Dirty like you did when you left Sanada's office. Dirty like you did when Komiya spilled his pretty red blood on the floor and died in front of you.

He's spared from further embarrassment by a soft knock on the other side of the shower stall's frosted glass. Tokitoh freezes in horror as Kou's gentle voice echoes through the room. "My apologies if I am interrupting, but your uncle is becoming rather impatient, Kubota-kun."

You chuckle quietly at that and mutter an amused, "Okay" and wait to hear Kou close the door behind himself. Then Tokitoh is hauling you up and out of the water. Kou left towels for you and you waste no time in giving your hair a cursory once-over with the soft material before wrapping it around your waist to procure clothing from the bags you brought. Your skin is clean of salt water and blood and sweat, and you feel exponentially better.

You pull on a clean pair of jeans and a sweatshirt while Tokitoh wrestles his way back into pants and a tee shirt, and you smile at his antics while reaching for the doorknob to the main room of the Toukohan. Before you can open the door, however, he's pulling on the hood of your sweatshirt. You turn and he tackles you against the door.

"Toki--" you start to ask what he's doing but he drags you down to eye level and his handsome face looks very serious.

"Did you fuck Sanada?" he asks quietly.

You blink as your mind derails like a train wreck. "No," you frown.

"Did he fuck you?"

You arch an eyebrow at your mate and cross your arms over your chest. "No, Tokitoh. And before you run through the list of permutations and combinations of every lewd sexual act that you know, nothing happened."

You feel guilty for lying to him, but it wouldn't make it any easier if you came clean. You probably feel worse about it than he does, anyway.

Tokitoh sighs and rubs the back of his neck nervously, and you find this interesting because he doesn't get nervous around you very often. "I just thought...." he trails off.

You wrap an arm around his slim waist and pull him closer, flush against you. "What did you think, Tokitoh?"

He glances up at you and frowns. "You were gone all night, and the old man said that Sanada's been after you for years, and I thought that you...."

He's getting frustrated by trying to explain his feelings, and you smile crookedly and lean down and press your lips to his. The way that his eyes flutter closed at your touch amazes you. "Sanada tried," you admit to him. "But I'm not interested. He's a dangerous man."

Tokitoh looks at you and smiles sadly. "So am I," he sighs.

And you know that he's right. He could snap at any time, for absolutely no reason, and rip you and himself to shreds with that hand of his. But that isn't what makes Tokitoh dangerous. No, it's the way that he arches against you when you kiss him, and the way your name rolls off of his tongue so easily. This cat is dangerous the way that no dog never can be.

Because you let him.

Sanada can shoot you, stab you, beat you, rape you. It wouldn't be nearly as lethal as this kid in your arms turning his back on you.

And you don't know how to explain this to Tokitoh because you've never been big with deep philosophical discussions on the topic of your feelings, so you smile at him and say, "Yeah, you are," and pull him out into the main room of the Toukohan, where your uncle is pacing in aggravation and Kou is locking the front door.

You sit down on the couch and Tokitoh sprawls beside you, his back propped up on your shoulder, and produces a Gameboy from somewhere in his pocket. Kou joins you and says nothing. The detective sits across from you in a beaten-up old armchair and lights a cigarette. You ignore Kasai's arched eyebrow as he stares pointedly through the haze of smoke in the air at your arm slung casually around your cat's thin shoulders, and you launch into an explanation of your meeting with Sanada.

The way that Tokitoh growls quietly against your shoulder with every mention of your new boss' name makes the corner of your lips quirk up. You tighten your arm around his skinny shoulders and, as soon as Kasai and Kou are involved in a conversation about these latest developments in the epic saga of your lives, you lean down until your lips brush over the sensitive shell of Tokitoh's ear. "Since when do cats growl?" you murmur quietly. He elbows you roughly in the ribs and cusses at you, something to the effect of, "not a fucking pet," and gets to his feet, stalking into the back room. Your uncle isn't watching—thank god—but Kou smiles knowingly before turning back to the conversation.

Tokitoh isn't pissed about your little jokes. He's just psychopathically possessive of your sorry ass.

Typical cat.

I haven't written an explicit scene like that in a while, and I hope it didn't sound awkward or OOC, but realistically I have no clue how these guys would act during sex. That's why I love this pairing so damned much. Neither one of them comes across as the submissive, 'womanly' type.

Sekiya, on the other hand...


	7. Beretta 6

Disclaimer: Kazuya Minekura owns Wild Adapter. I do not.

Warning: Language.

Note: The inspiration for this chapter was so damned random that it sort of bled into the plot. Hope it's plausible enough for you guys.

**Beretta 6**

brkstrtrcr

June 2009

You aren't sure if letting Tokitoh play your second shadow while you're 'working' is a good idea or not, but you don't exactly have a choice. His exact words were, "You're not leaving me here." So he's following you down the streets of your old neighborhood, hands shoved into his pockets, an uncharacteristic frown marring his handsome features, violet eyes glaring indiscriminately at startled strangers and passing traffic.

He's angry because his inborn sense of fairness, right and wrong that he's picked up from you and Kasai and manga tells him that hassling small business owners out of their profits and terrorizing the average working man is not justice, even though you've tried several times to give him the "greater good" lecture. You can't quite stomach it yourself, but you've come to accept it as the way of the corrupt world. Besides, if it keeps Tokitoh alive and well versus in a bag or some Tojou laboratory, you'd club baby seals without flinching.

And on the subject of questionable morals, neither one of you has brought up the 'shower incident', as your mind has dubbed it, and you think that maybe it's for the better that you don't, although Kasai was definitely giving you some odd looks during your little pow-wow last night.

You smirk around the cigarette between your lips and turn the corner, away from the busy main drag and towards the narrower, older back streets that Yakuza belong in. Your destination is the restaurant address on the business card in your pocket; your goal is to assume the position of leader of the new Izumo youth group. You wonder if you have Tokitoh to thank for pulling the trigger. You still find some poetic irony in just how this position became available--your two-hour bloody rampage through an off-shore oil tanker--but you suppose that if Fate isn't just a cruel bitch outright then she at least has an appropriate sense of humor.

Your musings bring you past open-air seafood markets and questionable gambling halls to the doorstep of a familiar Chinese restaurant, and you shake your head silently as you open the door and step inside. This small, family-owned venue was Komiya's favorite place to ditch his collection route and wait out the day. You haven't been here in years, and the automatic proverbial kick in the gut as you enter is probably the reason why.

You ignore Tokitoh's presence entirely as you let your mind slip into business-mode. It's been a long time, but it comes naturally to you. It's just the way your brain is wired.

The young man behind the counter glances at you apprehensively and it's like blood in the water. Predators can sense fear. You approach him calmly and something inside you smiles at the nervous tick in his eyebrows. "Who's in charge here?" you ask evenly.

The hired help shakes his head. "My boss is out, right now. Can I help you?"

You smirk and reach behind you and extract your gun from your belt and ignore Tokitoh's outraged expression and lay the Glock on the counter facing the worker. "That's not who I'm looking for," you say.

The clerk gets the hint and stammers out an apology in Chinese, he's so damned scared, and while you wait for him to piss his pants and stop bowing to you another young man steps out of a back room, gun in-hand, and freezes when your eyes meet.

Long blonde hair in a sloppy ponytail, squinting warm brown eyes, and a perpetually scruffy goatee?

Ryoji Takizawa.

The reporter from the Fortune Fang cult.

What the fuck--

"I'm assuming Sanada sent you down here?" he asks with an annoyed sigh, pocketing his weapon. "You must be Kubota-kun." He looks meaningfully at the gun you still have aimed at the clerk. "The boss said you were a few cards short of a full deck." His brown eyes flash with _something_--warning, maybe?--and he glances over at Tokitoh as if he's never seen him before. "Who's the kid?"

And suddenly you understand _exactly_ what's going on, and you fight tooth and nail to keep from grinning like an idiot. You just pray that Tokitoh can pick up on it and play along as well. "An associate," you answer dismissively. "Is there some place less," you glance over your shoulder at the flighty clerk, "crowded where we can continue these introductions?"

Ryoji nods and rolls his eyes and gestures for you to follow him outside. "Let's take a walk. I have to collect today, anyway. Some asshole took out our entire group a week ago and now I have to do all the fucking work."

As you push through the door to the restaurant you do grin.

Ten minutes later you can tell that Tokitoh is going to fucking explode if someone doesn't explain what's going on, why Ryoji is working for Izumo, why you're ignoring him, why you threatened an innocent bystander with a loaded gun. You're in the subway station underground and Ryoji gives the crowd a cursory scan before moving closer to you with casual grace and slumping against the platform barrier you're leaning against. Hidden by the throng of salary workers and schoolchildren ambling by, his face relaxes and he looks over at you with his signature crooked smile. "You have no idea how glad I am to see you," he sighs.

You chuckle. "You just couldn't wait for new leads on WA, could you?"

He grins sheepishly and glances around before lowering his voice. "Hey, if I can infiltrate a cult, why not an organized crime syndicate?"

You can't help but shake your head in disbelief and admiration at his tenacity. This is the same man that conspired with your cat and a hooker to break you out of jail and the reporter who has followed you faithfully through your search into Wild Adapter. If anyone could assist you in your endeavors to protect Tokitoh in Izumo, it would be Ryoji.

Speaking of your roommate...

"Someone want to tell me what the hell's going on?" he glowers at you both. He looks frustrated, as if he's been wracking his brain for the last fifteen minutes trying to figure out an explanation for this little adventure. You smile.

"I joined Izumo a month ago," Ryoji says quietly. "I couldn't get any information out of you two so I decided to go to the source. Everyone knows that's what Izumo's after, and they have to get it before Tojou. For a while I was just collecting money under this guy Kiba. He and his partner Ryunosuke used to work under you, come to find out."

You nod, impressed. Ryoji has snooped around quite a bit, and he's uncovered much more of your illustrious little history within the Yakuza than you would have cared for, but it was inevitable. Your reputation has always had a pesky habit of preceding you. "They told me that you wiped out an entire office building after your second-in-command was murdered by Tojou."

Tokitoh's eyes widen in recognition, and you know that he's remembering that damned pocket watch.

_Someone who is no longer with us._

You know that you'll have some explaining to do later, but for now you ignore his piercing stare and turn back to Ryoji. "So when I heard that we were going after the mythical Kubota Makoto's cat, I went back to you guys' apartment to give you a head's up, but you weren't there. And that asshole Kiba must have thought I was acting shady, because he sent me off on some bullshit errand. When I came back to the office everyone was gone."

The southbound train pulls into the station and you all pause to watch the sea of passengers flow out and then in, punctual as always. As the warning bell chimes overhead, drowning out the hum of chatter and background noise, Ryoji turns to you and sighs. "Did you really gun down that entire oil tanker by yourself?" he asks, and there's a note of awe in his voice.

You glance automatically at Tokitoh's brooding expression without really meaning to and nod. Ryoji gives you a half-hearted smile. He understands. It's something about him that has always irritated you in the past, but you know that it will come in handy now. He's very adept at reading people; it's probably what makes him such an unnervingly observant reporter.

"So what the hell are you doing back in the thick of things?" he asks.

Tokitoh turns away with a rude snort and crosses his arms over his thin chest, the epitome of disgust. You ignore him. "I made a deal with Sanada."

"A pact with the devil himself," Ryoji purrs, holding up his thumbs and forefingers at angles while envisioning his words as the headline in a newspaper.

You overlook his theatrics. "He gets my employment and in exchange he won't come near Tokitoh, again."

Your reporter friend nods at the simple genius of your logic. "Yeah, but you know what they say, Kubochii," he shrugs.

You arch an eyebrow at him. "What do they say?"

He smiles grimly and pushes away from the platform barrier. "You make a deal with the devil and he'll always kill you in the end."

You frown. "What do you mean?" You follow him as he paces calmly down the walkway and to an adjacent platform. Tokitoh is right on your heels, as always.

"I mean Sanada is as black as they get, man. I know you don't trust him. I just hope that we can get to the bottom of this whole WA thing before he decides to dissect Tokki," he mutters, glancing over his shoulder at your companion.

You turn while walking and follow his line of sight to Tokitoh. "I'll kill him first," you declare, and neither one of them asks for clarification as to who it is exactly that you would shoot--Sanada or Tokitoh.


	8. Beretta 7

Disclaimer: Kazuya Minekura owns Wild Adapter. I do not.

Warning: Violence, language, Sanada. I think he should count.

Notes: So I've decided that I really hate Sanada, and I wanted to bring out his creepy, evil side. If any of you are _Saiyuki_ fans like me, then think about the feeling you get in the pit of your stomach every time Dr. Nii shows up in the series. Yeah, that's how Sanada makes me feel.

**Beretta 7**

brkstrtrcr

June 2009

You're introduced to the straggling remnants of the youth group over the next few weeks, and so far you aren't impressed. There's Takata and Shinji, two seventeen year-old twin brothers who are better at arguing with each other than intimidating store owners. Fujimiya you dismiss as an alcoholic. You're fairly certain that Satoshi would piss himself if confronted with a weapon, but he talks a lot of trash. Matsuto probably uses more of the drugs he's supposed to be selling than his clientele, and if Hanada spent as much time collecting payouts as he does in the brothels you'd all be fucking millionaires.

It seems that things have changed quite a bit since you left the Izumokai. The standards have been lowered, and these are the _decent _employees. You make immediate changes, shuffling people around in your group's vague hierarchy and firing others outright. Collection routes are consolidated, individuals assigned specific duties and obligations. Slowly the youth gang fluctuates, stabilizes, grows, and finally you feel confident enough in your group's abilities and competence to come into the office a little later than usual.

Tokitoh is awake and vaulting out of bed before the alarm goes off like he does every morning, but today you don't follow him. You lay in the warmth of blankets and his lingering body heat and close your eyes against consciousness. You miss being able to lounge around in bed well into the afternoon.

"Kubo-chan, get dressed. You're going to be late, and Ryoji's gonna be pissed."

Tokitoh tosses your jeans at you and stands over the mattress, hands on his slim hips, frowning. You reach out and snag the front of his shirt and tug. "Kubo--!" he squawks indignantly and falls onto your chest, and you silence his muttered curses the most effective way that you know how.

He's been very standoffish the past few weeks. You're fairly certain that he's still angry with you over the whole Izumo thing, but you made your decision and changing your mind now won't erase your deal with Sanada, or the tattoo on your forearm. It won't ensure his safety. And there's something about his weight on your chest and his lips against yours that you'd rather keep around for a while.

He bites your lip sharply and pulls away and punches you in the stomach, calls you a pervert, but you smile. The slight tint to his handsome face is amusing, as is his elevated heart rate, his awkward adjustment of the front of his jeans as he glares down at you from beside the mattress. "Get up!" he demands, kicking you roughly in the side with a bare foot, and you oblige amiably.

Twenty minutes later you're wondering if perhaps you would have faired better had you ignored the alarm clock and your cat and the grudging responsibility of your Yakuza obligations. There's a familiar black sedan parked in front of the restaurant that houses the Youth Group office, and Ryoji is leaning against it's back fender with a scowl on his face.

"You're late," he mutters, flicking a cigarette butt into the wet gutter and eying you with mild disgust. You're willing back the urge to loose a few rounds into that car, because you know what its presence means. Sanada wants an audience with you and Tokitoh, and your guns aren't invited. This also indicates that your free run in Izumo is closing in on you. It was simply a matter of time before he decided to show his true colors and reign you in like a vicious dog on a chain. Your stomach is full of looming dread; this little rendezvous with your employer has arrived much too soon for your liking.

"You've got a date with the boss-man," Ryoji smiles crookedly. It doesn't reach his eyes. Their warm brown depths are worried, but he won't say anything to spook Tokitoh. For that you are damned grateful. Your roommate isn't stupid, and you'd stake your life on the fact that when he catches on to today's planned festivities at Izumo Headquarters you'll have to drag him into Sanada's office, kicking and screaming.

So you nod to Ryoji, push Tokitoh into the back seat, and climb in beside him, ignoring the suspicious look he shoots you and the trepidation in his violet eyes, and you feel ridiculously filthy as a human being for what you're doing to him.

What you're going to allow Sanada to do to him.

He's too proud to admit that the leader of Izumo makes him very fucking nervous. Tokitoh doesn't tell you when he's scared or anxious or upset, but then again he's never really needed to. As naturally as he's able to read your emotions in your eyes, your lying smiles, you've learned most of his nervous habits. Right now he's chewing on his fingernails--left hand--and staring out the tinted window at Chinatown slowly morphing into corporate skyscrapers and cleaner streets. Well, as clean as Yokohama gets, anyway.

You want to say something. You want to look at him with your easy smile and lie to him, tell him to relax, that everything will be fine, but your lips are set in a grim line that will not budge. Lying always came so naturally to you before. When did telling people what they want to hear become such an obstacle?

He pulls his fingertip out of his mouth and glares at you with this accusing, flighty look on his handsome face, and you find the answer to that question. Lying became harder the minute you picked him up off of the ground and dragged his sorry ass into your apartment, your sanctuary. Lying to him became tedious and altogether unpleasant when he opened those beautiful, angry violet eyes and demanded to know who the fuck you were and why you were standing there in your own bedroom. Lying to Tokitoh became impossible when he snapped your arm in that monstrous hand of his like it was a matchstick and then sobbed blindly into your chest for twenty minutes like a child.

And as the lying got exponentially more difficult, the trusting became exponentially more easy, and you still aren't sure that you don't feel cheated by that particular little ratio. Maybe that's why you feel so incredibly dirty for what you know is about to transpire at Izumo Headquarters. As you slide out of the backseat of this expensive sedan and duck through the large glass doors of the building, you leave your emotions at the entryway. You can't afford to be distracted by your heart walking a step behind you and your newly-acquainted conscience in your throat.

Tokitoh's sneakers squeak unnaturally loudly on the pristine marble floors. It grates against your ears in syncopation with your heartbeat thudding in your chest. Apprehensive doesn't begin to describe your state of mind. A year ago if someone had told you that you'd stroll into this office with your cat in tow you would have smiled and put a bullet in their head. Now you're wondering if maybe you deserve that lead more.

You don't bother to knock on the large oak doors to Sanada's office. You step inside, and Tokitoh is practically standing behind you. You know without having to ask that you're both resisting the urge to turn on your heels, draw your guns, and leave this room a bloodbath in your wake as you run as far away from this single man behind his desk. Your survival instincts are quite finely honed though, and the brainless, steroid-pumping bodyguards posted on either side of the doorway behind you are reason enough to control your itching fingers. They look at first glance like the type of guys who jerk off watching people beat kittens with baseball bats. That alone is a fine reason to keep your cool.

Sanada smiles his superior smile and you return it. You hate yourself as you step aside and leave Tokitoh bared before his cruel grey eyes. Tokitoh hates you more. "So this is the infamous Kubota Tokitoh," he drawls, ignoring your arched eyebrow at his tactless addition of your surname to your cat's given name. He stands up from the desk and moves towards you both, focused solely on your counterpart.

His steel-grey eyes are raking over Tokitoh like a starving man at a buffet and it's creeping him out. Every muscle in his lithe frame is wire-tight, ready and waiting to strike. He's barely breathing as Sanada stands before him, several inches taller, and smiles down at him like only a predator can. "You, dear boy, are the key for this organization's future endeavors, and I'm going to need you to submit to some testing."

But Tokitoh is not an injured gazelle in the safari. He's a dangerous fucking animal when cornered. 'Submit' does not exist in his vocabulary. Tokitoh hits and scratches and bites and breaks until he gets what he wants. You've said that for years. And when Sanada reaches out and takes his chin in one hand, his lips twisted into a conniving smile, Tokitoh lashes out like only a feral cat can.

Several things happen almost simultaneously.

Your cat bites the living shit out of your boss' hand. Sanada jumps back with surprising agility, cursing, and instead of pulling his trusty Sig Sauer on Tokitoh, he kicks _your_ legs out from underneath you instead and rams the barrel against your temple. The two meat-heads grab Tokitoh and knock him to the floor, wrenching his arms behind his back and yanking his head up by a handful of black hair. When he sees the gun aimed at your head he stops struggling instantly.

Your boss is a hell of a lot more observant than you've given him credit for. Tokitoh won't fight back at the risk of your head exploding across this clean marble floor. It's weaknesses like that that are ruthlessly easy to exploit, and Sanada is the most opportunistic son-of-a-bitch you've ever met.

"Not so tough when 'Kubo-chan' has a gun to his head, are you?" he drawls mockingly. Tokitoh doesn't respond.

It doesn't take much to ignore the ache in your legs from that kick and the hard stone digging into your knees. You glance across the office at Tokitoh. He's got that, 'if-I-weren't-being-held-down-by-two-fucking-line-backers-and-you-weren't-a-twitch-away-from-having-your-brains-blown-out-I'd-kick-your-ass,' look on his face.

Above you, Sanada sighs angrily. He takes a fistful of your hair and wrenches your head back violently before hitting you across the face with his pistol. Tokitoh growls and lunges towards him, but the bastards pinning him to the the ground kick him in the back with heavy boots and step on his spine, drawing a loud scream of pain from him.

Sanada jams the business-end of that Sig between your eyes. "I don't explain myself often, but I'll make this exception for you. _Once._ You're alive today because I allow you to be, Kubota Makoto. Try my patience much more and I'll gladly revoke that favor. You work for me. You do as I say, without question. I own you."

Apparently he needs to reiterate that point and really drive it home, because he rears back and slaps you across the face like one of his no-account hookers in his whorehouses. "I _own_ you." It bruises your ego a bit, but right now you're too focused on getting Tokitoh out of here in one piece to really care.

"Follow my orders to the letter and the boy lives," Sanada hisses. "Defy me and your uncle will be scraping his scrawny ass off of the sidewalk and into a bucket. I can make that happen. Do I make myself clear?"

You meet Sanada's grey eyes and answer him without emotion, "Crystal clear," like the dog that you are.

He lets go of your hair and stands there with his gun against your temple. "Now I want him to comply with whatever testing my associates feel is necessary. I don't care if you have to beat him half to death to force compliance. If you can't manage him I have people who can."

There's a tense moment when your employer lowers his aim and pauses to see how Tokitoh will respond, but you suppose that there's something about having a two-hundred and fifty pound man standing on your lower vertebrae that discourages stupid actions. You wince in silent sympathy when Sanada stalks over to your roommate and kicks him in the gut, his spine arched painfully back by the grip the other asshole still has on his hair. Sanada ignores Tokitoh's strained gasps for breath and kneels in front of him, aiming his gun behind himself and in your general direction.

"_You_," he sighs furiously, reaching up with the bleeding hand that Tokitoh bit and cupping one of your counterpart's cheeks. "You have caused me far more inconvenience than I care to think about at the moment. I don't know what manner of bullshit Kubota has fed you, but I couldn't give a shit less whether you live or die." He strokes the pad of his thumb over Tokitoh's mouth, smiling in amusement when those soft lips curl up in to reveal angry, barred, blood-stained teeth. "You'd probably be easier to handle in a body bag," he adds thoughtfully, before leaning in closer.

You can hear Tokitoh growling from ten feet away. Sanada ignores his snarling and presses his lips against Tokitoh's and cocks back the hammer on the gun still pointing at your face. It's all the threat that your cat needs to keep from ripping Sanada's face off. "Listen to Kubota and you'll both continue to breathe," he smirks arrogantly against Tokitoh's mouth before pulling away and nodding for his bodyguards to release your companion. Sanada gestures vaguely at the door with his loaded weapon, sitting back down behind his desk calmly. He doesn't bother to look at either of you. "Now get the fuck out of my office."

You're practically running down the stairs and out of the front of the building before Tokitoh will even look at you. As you light a cigarette with shaking hands that you refuse to acknowledge, he doubles over, hands on his knees, to catch his breath. You touch the swollen side of your face gingerly and frown when your fingers come away from the skin speckled with bright, wet blood. You decide that you hate the color red.

And before you can open your mouth or turn to look at your roommate or take a decent drag of your cigarette, Tokitoh walks calmly over to you, plucks the thin white stick from between your fingers, and punches you as hard as he can in the stomach.


	9. Beretta 8

Disclaimer: Kazuya Minekura owns Wild Adapter. I do not.

Warning: Language, violence, analytical psychology (ie. Kubota's fucked up mind).

Notes: Short chapter, and this was a hard one to get right. If Toki-boy seems OOC I apologize.

Special: Due to college time management issues, my beta reader has completely crapped out on me. If anyone is interested in helping me out with this, please PM me.

**Beretta 8**

brkstrtrcr

June 2009

There's just something about seeing him lose his whole fucking mind like this that makes you smile.

The first few hits were enough to wind you, bring you to your knees on the sidewalk behind Izumo Headquarters, and he's not pulling his punches. Your ribs are screaming with every breath you take. Your insides feel like they've been put through a meat grinder. He's standing over you, his fists shaking at his sides, angry tears coursing down his face, and part of you wants him to hit you again. You won't fight back. You'd never strike him. But you won't defend yourself either. You deserve this. You don't deserve him.

He's grinding his teeth together to force back the furious betrayal coursing through him now. His thin shoulders are trembling, his chest heaving, and you want nothing more than to die by his hand right now.

How fucking _dare _you, Kubota?

You practically handed his skinny ass over to Sanada on a silver platter. Your boss' orders are overriding your common sense, and you're allowing it to happen. So when Tokitoh throws caution to the wind and cocks back and knocks the living shit out of you again, you let him. And when he tackles you to the ground and slams your head into the cold concrete and straddles your stomach and hits you over and over and over in the chest, you smile.

"What the fuck is _wrong _with you?!" he shouts, his voice cracking with the strain of it all. "Stop fucking smiling!"

But you can't. Because this is all so goddamned ironic, and stupid things like that amuse you. He's beating against your chest with his fists and swearing and calling you filthy names. And you let him.

After ten minutes he seems to tire of knocking you senseless, and he doubles over against you and hits you weakly while crying.

He hasn't done this in years. In fact, the last time his face was pressed into your chest and he sobbed his little heart out like this was the night that he broke your arm in half. You're not exactly a sucker for the waterworks but you understand the frustrated desperation and misplaced anger pouring out of his tightly closed violet eyes, ripping out of his slender throat and past gritted teeth and into your shirt.

"Tokitoh--" you start to speak but he shakes his head and chokes back a violent sob and growls at you.

"Shut up," he snarls against your chest. "Just shut the fuck _up_!"

You don't argue. You just reach up and put your hand on the back of his head and listen to him cry. If the lowest circle of hell is reserved for people like Sanada, they're going to have to dig a basement for people like you. This kid sobbing furiously into your shirt is the single most important thing in your fucked up, jaded life, and look at what you've done to him.

Tokitoh might have been better off if he'd just given up and died in that alley. This isn't a new train of thought for you. You're almost positive that he'd do more than just bruise you or break bones if you told him that, but part of you knows that you're altogether too talented at harming people. Until a pair of proud violet eyes became your sky, this strong and paradoxically fragile creature became your world, you had no idea how skilled you were at _hurting _people.

So what the hell are you going to do now?

The easy answer is to kill Sanada and set this building on fucking fire. The hard answer, the one that practically demands to be followed, is to suck it up and handle things the way you have been--play Sanada's little game, give him whatever it is that he thinks Tokitoh contains to unlock Wild Adapter, and get as far from Yokofuckinghama as possible.

But you know deep down in parts of you that are best left in shadow that you were meant to live and die in these streets, with your guts splattered across the sidewalk and your gun in your hand. You've never believed in fairy tale endings, naïve princesses and slaying dragons with gleaming swords that never seem to stain with blood. You aren't bitter about it, either. That's just the kind of person you are.

Tokitoh...

Tokitoh isn't. You sigh heavily and sit up, pulling him up with you, and lift his head to look at his tear-stained face. He meets your eyes and the misery in his is gut-wrenching. What the hell are you doing to this kid?

"I'm sorry," is all that you can force out and you both know that it isn't enough. But he trusts you, even after all of this, and he nods, and he swipes quickly at his eyes with the backs of his fists, and he takes a deep breath before meeting your gaze again.

You like to think that you're intelligent, clever even, but you will never understand what it is that he sees in you that can make the tears stop, push the anger away. Like you're the cure for every problem he could ever encounter. Like you're a fucking superhero.

You're not. You're Kubota Makoto, a twenty year-old drug dealer with a criminal record as long as a school bus and too much emotional baggage. You're relatively lazy, calm to a fault, and--generally speaking--absolutely fucking dangerous.

But maybe that's just your ego talking.

Tokitoh rubs his palms over his face and sighs shakily. "I'd apologize for beating the shit out of you but I'm still pissed," he smiles weakly. You nod and put a hand on the back of his neck, lean forward so that your forehead rests against his. You feel like you've been run over by a subway train, but his scrawny frame straddling yours overrides the ache in your bones.

He chuckles mirthlessly. It's a cold, dead sound that would be more appropriate coming from you. It would seem that he's picked up quite a few of your less enviable personality traits.

"I have to go back in there, don't I?" he asks quietly.

"Yeah."

"You're coming with me, right?"

You meet his violet gaze. "Yeah."

He arches an eyebrow at you. "You're the queen of England, right?"

Your crooked smile steals across your lips. "Yeah."

Tokitoh's smile widens into the more comfortable expression you've seen on his face so many times and he smacks you in the back of the head--much more gently now--and holds your hazel eyes with his purple ones. "Stupid Kubo-chan," he mutters.

"Yeah."

You can't bring yourself to kiss him even now, when the expression on his face says that he wants it, and when the foreign taste of Ark Royals and Sanada on his soft, full lips needs to be replaced with Seven Stars and you.

You still feel too damned dirty, and you don't think that you'd be able to look at your face and all of its livid bruises in the mirror tomorrow morning if you tainted his lips any more.

Okay. I know that Tokitoh does cry in front of Kubota at least once in this series, and I had a difficult time writing this without him coming off as holyshitgirlyandeffiminate, which he is definitely not. It's the same problem I have with the sex scenes. I've just never been a big fan of the infamous 'hurt/ comfort' genre, I suppose. Meh. This makes the most sense to me, because only in these two's dysfunctional relationship could Toki cry while beating the brakes off of Kubo. Ah, love...


	10. Beretta 9

Disclaimer: Kazuya Minekura owns Wild Adapter. I do not. But I'll gladly fight her for it.

Warning: Language, slight sexual content (sorry, ladies).

Notes: By the end of this chapter, you're either going to love me or shoot me. The inspiration for the plot line here was an episode of Law & Order SVU. For god's sake, don't ask.

**Beretta 9**

brkstrtrcr

June 2009

Ryoji doesn't argue when you tell him to handle the Youth Group the next day.

Not really, anyway.

He huffs and sighs and flicks you off over the phone, but you know that he'll do what you ask, and not just because he's technically below you in the Izumo hierarchy. He saw the tourniquet wrapped around Tokitoh's right arm yesterday when you came back from Sanada's office. His brown eyes were worried, but you silently requested that he keep his comments to himself, even as Tokitoh's violet gaze promised a hellacious death to anyone who so much as looked at him. Ryoji nodded and backed off.

The rendezvous with Sanada's crack-medical associates hadn't gone as badly as you'd suspected. They'd poked and prodded and asked questions, and while your roommate had been visibly agitated, you'd been impressed that he'd managed to not kill anyone until they asked for a blood sample.

And once he saw the syringes and tried to rip the attendant's arms off, they didn't ask.

You were _ordered _to hold him down. And you did. And the only reason that he hadn't ripped _you _limb from limb had been that unspoken threat that hung in the air, because you both knew that somehow, someway, Sanada was watching. So you'd pinned him to the table with your reassuring weight on his hips and held his terrified violet eyes until they got what they needed and tied a crude roll of gauze around his arm and left him trembling beneath you under the bright, sterile flourescents.

You were fairly certain that Tokitoh wanted to bash your face in after that, but he didn't. He shook violently and didn't let go of your hand for thirty-seven minutes until you walked into the Toukohan, but he didn't hit you again. He refused to leave your side for the rest of the night.

When you woke up this morning he was curled around you like an overgrown house cat. You reached over him carefully and groped around on the floor for glasses and phone before calling Ryoji. And now you're just laying here, running your fingers through his soft, unruly black hair, contemplating the interesting direction that your life has taken in the past few weeks.

You're halfway through recounting that rather interesting little incident in the shower from several weeks ago when your phone rings on the pillow beside your head. You sigh and look at the display in mild annoyance and resist the urge to strangle orphaned fucking children when the little LCD flashes 'Sanada'. This man has the worst timing...

"Kubota," you answer quietly. Tokitoh murmurs in his sleep unintelligibly--something about Street Fighter--and buries his face in your throat.

"I see that you aren't at the office, today," he drawls, exhaling cigarette smoke audibly. Your body tenses automatically, like he'll walk into you room at any moment and demand that you hand over your bed mate, but you hear the traffic flying by in the background and realize that he's at the restaurant. "Are you calling out sick?"

You agile mind supplies you with a snappy retort but you bite your tongue. "I have some business to take care of. I've already contacted Ryoji." Granted, your business involves spending the rest of the day basking in the unnatural heat pouring from Tokitoh's slender limbs, but your boss doesn't need to know that.

Sanada gives a soft 'ah' and then chuckles. "Well, as much as I hate to be the bearer of bad news, I'm being forced to give you a new assignment. It can't wait until tomorrow. I've left the information with your colleague at the office."

You school your voice into some semblance of appropriate politeness and ignore the irritated twitch in your eyebrow. "Of course," you reply.

Tokitoh frowns against the sensitive skin of your neck and nuzzles into the underside of your jaw, muttering at the stubble there. His arm around your waist tightens.

"Oh, and Kubota-kun?"

You cringe at the way he purrs your name into the phone. "Yes?"

"Tell your cat I said thanks for the entertainment the other day."

You hang up the phone abruptly, against your better judgment. You were never one to lose your temper so easily, but there's something about the filthy quality to his tone that enrages you.

Even now, in this dingy, tiny room, miles away from Izumo Headquarters, you can't ever truly escape Sanada's all-reaching omnipotence. He will never forgive the blow to his ego that you dealt him when you calmly walked out of his office and left Izumo, or the way that you smiled and told him with your eyes that you'd rather rip out your own intestines than give yourself to him when he kissed you in the backseat of that stupid black sedan. Money and power don't impress you.

"Kubo-chan?"

The smile that tugs at your lips, genuine and real, does impress you. Tokitoh's innate curiosity and subtle naivety and all-around kind heart impress you. And maybe a tainted, jaded man like you doesn't deserve a pure soul like him, but you'll be damned if you tell him that.

You glance down at your counterpart to find his sleepy violet eyes half-open and watching you. Tokitoh yawns loudly and stretches, his back popping audibly and he groans in appreciation. You sigh as his lithe, slender frame presses against your side and you feel his noticeable erection grind against your hip.

His face flushes in mild embarrassment and he pushes away a bit on the small mattress. "Sorry," he mutters. You don't respond aloud; instead, you slide an arm around his back and pull until he's sitting on your lap, lean thighs on either side of yours, and you rock your hips up against his meaningfully. His eyebrows shoot up to his hairline as he realizes that you're just as hard as he is.

Tokitoh smiles nervously at you. "Okay, then. I'm not sorry, you pervert." And he rolls his narrow hips down into yours and you hiss quietly at the pressure.

Sex is something that you really didn't think about too terribly often, until Tokitoh grabbed your shirt and threw you down onto your own bed and cuddled up against you naked two years ago. Since then the subject has crossed your mind from time to time, with growing frequency. Right now it's scrolled in neon letters at the forefront of your brain.

You let him pin your wrists to the mattress on either side of your head, rock against you slowly, and get himself worked up. The lazy half of your mind approves of being able to just lay there pliantly underneath him. And the way his lips part and he starts to breathe more heavily and his heart rate triples as he grinds against you is ample motivation to let him do whatever the fuck he wants.

And then your phone rings again and you stare up past his crestfallen face at the ceiling of this tiny room and imagine that you must have been a serial rapist or something equally as horrible in a previous life. Karma is not fond of you.

You answer the phone without looking at the display this time. And before you even have a chance to open your mouth and structure your mounting frustration into some manner of a calm voice, Ryoji is barking into your ear. "Kubochii, you need to get your ass down here pronto."

Tokitoh cocks his head to the side inquisitively at the urgent tone in your friend's normally cool voice. You've both lost complete interest in the rising heat between your half-clothed bodies. "What's going on and where are you?" you ask, because he isn't talking to you as the second-in-charge of the youth gang. He's speaking as the reporter who took your cat in a year ago, the guy who genuinely cares about you both.

That's mildly disconcerting, to say the least.

"That fucking file that Sanada's creepy ass left! That's what's wrong! And I'm on the train heading to West Yokohama!"

You pull the phone away from your ear several inches--he's practically fucking screaming--and chew on your lower lip in contemplation before responding. "What was in the file?"

Ryoji growls. "Your new assignment. Remember your old pal Mr. Slice and Dice? The one that tried to make sashimi out of Tokki?"

Oh, how could you forget? Your gaze jumps instinctively to scar on Tokitoh's slender throat, the single long, thin white line that runs from behind his left ear to his Adam's apple. You ignore the flare of anger that rises in your gut. "Yeah."

"Well apparently word travels pretty quickly in this town; he knows about you coming back to Izumo." This news doesn't surprise you in the least. Sekiya was always a 'who's-who' of the Yakuza, after all. "He's ordered his guys to find Tokki and bring him in. And this is supposed to go down in the next seventy-two hours."

Tokitoh stares down at you in a mixture of fear and rage, and you decide that you're really very tired of seeing that look in his eyes, that fight-or-flight response that triggers so often these days. "What's the assignment?"

Ryoji snorts. "Oh, Sanada just wants you to kill Sekiya and the rest of Tojou's youth gang. That's all," he growls sarcastically. "That should be a fucking middle school field trip, right?"

You close your eyes and rub your temples with your free hand. Once again you've been dumped into the middle of a brewing shitstorm between rival Yakuza factions. But that's what junkyard dogs are for, after all. Maim intruders, kill survivors, and keep the master's hands clean. You were born to fight, roll in blood and shit, and die for the good of the cause.

"Where should I meet you?" you ask quietly.

Twenty minutes later you're sitting at a booth in a middle-class family restaurant in West Yokohama Crossing, playing idly with a spoon and a cup of coffee. Tokitoh sits beside you, head buried in his arms folded on the Formica tabletop. The conspicuous bulge of his Beretta stuffed haphazardly into the front of his jeans is hidden from view by his slumped frame, but it makes you feel better to know that it's there.

Strange, that. Two years ago you had no qualms with playing the role of his defender, but after everything that's happened with these Yakuza groups you understand that he feels the need to be able to protect himself, and his little kitten claws won't always do the job. Sometimes range and distance are essential.

You wonder when you became so open to the idea of him dirtying his hands in blood the way that you have.

The waitress sashays over to your table, coffee pot in-hand, with a smile and too much makeup and winks at you. "You need another cup, handsome?"

Tokitoh lifts his head from the folds of his arms and glares at her. You want to laugh, but instead you smack him amiably in the back of his head to redirect that possessive anger. It works like a charm; he jerks around in the seat. "What the hell was that for?!" he demands, but you grab him in a rough headlock and smile at the waitress, who looks positively confused.

"No, thanks. Could we have a Coke and an order of fries?" you ask politely. She pauses, her eyes on your fuming cat still struggling against your grip, before smiling nervously and walking away from the table much more quickly than she'd come.

Once she's safely out of range you let go of your roommate and he punches you in the arm. "You really should control your temper," you admonish him gently.

"Fuck off," he grumbles. "She was hitting on you."

You arch an eyebrow and give him a look that clearly states, 'And your point is...?' Tokitoh glares at you darkly. "She's only doing it so you'll leave her a tip," he points out matter-of-factly, before reaching over and snagging your coffee without asking. This time you do smile.

"You have no manners whatsoever," you sigh. He's too busy gulping down your coffee to care. He looks at you over the rim of the chipped mug.

"Whaddaya mean?" he asks around the lip of the mug.

"Normally," you explain as if you're speaking to a small child, "one asks for permission before taking something that belongs to someone else."

He rolls his eyes, finishes draining the cup, and slides it back over to you. "That's stupid. What's mine is mine. And what's yours is mine."

Is skill with logic is absolutely fucking astounding. You smile crookedly at him and he frowns. "And don't talk to me like I'm five. You aren't my dad."

No, you are most certainly not.

"There you guys are!" You both look up and watch Ryoji glance nervously over his shoulder before sliding into the booth across from you. He adjusts his shoulder holster under his jacket with a little too much effort and leans forward. "Is it safe to talk here?" he asks quietly.

Tokitoh leans across the table towards him and, in a stage whisper, replies, "Yeah, just ignore those two Tojou guys behind you."

Ryoji's brown eyes widen and he whips around to find the booth behind him empty. Tokitoh collapses onto the tabletop in a fit of hilarious laughter. Ryoji kicks him under the table.

"Well, if you two are finished playing, I suppose we should get down to business," you drawl, shoving Tokitoh's useless form out of the way. The kid's laughing so hard that he has tears in his eyes.

Your second-in-command frowns and crosses his arms over his chest. "Yeah, I didn't want to say too much over the phone but apparently Tojou's already mobilized and they're looking for you, right now. The only problem is that they're too scared to come onto our turf, and the Triads already made it perfectly damned clear that Chinatown is off-limits. They won't hesitate to kill Yakuza for a territory infraction."

You nod. "So Sanada wants me to get rid of the problem. I suppose that would make sense. To my knowledge Sekiya is the only one from Tojou who's seen Tokitoh in person."

You casually leave out that the others who witnessed you and Sukiyaki's little gunpoint exchange are dead now. By your hand.

"Well, we have to assume that the whole youth gang knows what he looks like, now." Ryoji lights a cigarette and leans back, one arm stretched out along the back of the booth. "Why now, though? Why are they just now going after Tokki?"

You frown. That's quite the valid question. Your first and only encounter with Sekiya had been on his terms; you and Tokitoh had gotten mixed up in Tojou's little WA investigation. Truth be told, when your stray was initially kidnapped, you had suspected Sekiya before Sanada had even crossed your mind.

Your train of thought is interrupted by your waitress' return to your table, and she eyes Tokitoh warily while setting down his drink and food. He grins at her. She takes a step back and turns to Ryoji, but he waves her off irritably. She leaves the table with a confused look on her overdone features.

"Regardless of their motivation, I think we need to consider our options," Ryoji sighs. "We can either meet this head-on and attack first, or we can play defense and wait for them to come to us."

You nod and your eyes drift to Tokitoh. He's cramming french fries down his throat like a starving man, but you don't bother to remind him of the existence of table manners. You smirk, and turn back to Ryoji, who's watching your roommate's antics with an expression of fond disgust on his face. "Of course, we could always use Tokki here as bait."

Tokitoh pauses mid-bite and looks up at Ryoji to determine whether or not he's serious. When he decides that he can't read your partner's face, his violet eyes swivel to you. You light a cigarette and consider this option carefully, holding Tokitoh's gaze. This plan could work brilliantly, but it might be too obvious. If Sekiya smells a setup he could either kill your cat outright or back out, and then you will have lost the advantage of surprise. He's probably expecting you to come storming into his headquarters in a hail of gunfire...

"Oh, hell no--" your roommate starts to protest when a slow smile spreads across your face. You pluck the fry from his fingers and pop it into your mouth, chewing thoughtfully. This does appear to be a promising plan of action, but there are still too many unknown variables in play. You'll have to determine several things beforehand, and Ryoji is already listing them off aloud.

"...Recent Tojou movements, how many of these little bastards there are, profiles on their top members, the location of their new offices..." He trails off and ignores your fuming counterpart. "We need a shitload of information if we're going to get away with this. Who do you know that deals in information?"

You arch an eyebrow at Ryoji while playing idly with a spoon in your coffee cup. "That isn't a problem."

He rolls his eyes. "I meant specific information. Actually," he frowns. "Y'know, I did hear that some of the Tojou youth punks frequent this one particular bordello on their turf. Cherry something-or-other..."

Tokitoh blushes furiously and drops his eyes to the floor. What the hell is _that _all about? You weren't even aware that your stray knew what a brothel was, let alone that he had ever been to one...

"What's with him?" Ryoji asks curiously.

"I don't know," you murmur, and you lean down to catch Tokitoh's eyes but he's trying his damnedest to become invisible, right now. "Tokitoh?"

His ears are bright red and he mutters a name that makes you drop the spoon in your hand. It clatters into your empty coffee mug and Tokitoh winces visibly.

Anna-chan. Oh, you had almost completely forgotten about her. Almost. And you never did find out how Tokitoh knew about her.

Ryoji chuckles across from you. "Tokki, is that the hooker we pumped for information when Kubochii got locked up a year ago?" Tokitoh nods miserably. You look over at your Izumo counterpart for answers. "Chill out," he sighs, but you're almost certain that your face is still it's usual unreadable expression. "She gave us the name of the murder suspect so that we could get you out of jail. Although I did always wonder how Tokitoh knew her." He turns his warm brown gaze on your roommate. "You don't exactly seem like the 'I pick up prostitutes' type, kiddo."

You aren't sure what happened exactly, but apparently it was bad enough that your cat looks like he'd love nothing more than to melt into the booth, right now. You nod absently and reach out to put a reassuring hand on Tokitoh's head. He won't meet your hazel eyes, but he doesn't throw your hand off either. That tells you two things; first, that he feels guilty about... _something_, and second, that it's probably going to take a threat of physical violence to get any answers out of him.

And here you thought that Sekiya was the worst of your problems.

You fish around inside your jacket pocket for your phone and hit the second speed dial button, holding the device between your shoulder and jaw, your eyes lingering on your roommate. "Yeah, Kou, it's me. I need some information."

This is turning into a giant fucking WA character reunion, ain't it?


	11. Beretta 10

Disclaimer: Kazuya Minekura owns Wild Adapter. I do not.

Warning: Language, sexual content (of the hetero variety), mild Tokitoh angst.

Notes: Oh, hookers...

**Beretta 1****0**

brkstrtrcr

June 2009

You're sorely tempted to leave Tokitoh outside of this massage parlor with Ryoji, but you take him by the arm and practically drag him inside.

You were halfway through your conversation with Kou regarding this undercover whorehouse when Tokitoh tossed a beaten-up business card at you in that restaurant and left the table without a word.

Kyan Kyan Cherry, it had read in big gold letters. Underneath the name of the place was Anna's name and number. You'd ignored the twisting in your guts and politely ended your call to Kou before taking off after your mortified roommate.

As you approach the front desk a middle-aged man beams at not you but the miserable cat in your grip. "Ah, long time no see, sir!" he says, a little too enthusiastically for your tastes. "Are you looking for Anna-chan?"

Tokitoh nods in humiliation. "Well, we'll have to charge double if there are two of you, but she can definitely handle both of you," the clerk winks slyly at you. You successfully resist the urge to shoot him. "Right this way!"

You follow silently down a narrow corridor and past several rooms before your tour-guide pauses outside of one particular door. You aren't oblivious to the cacophony of grunts and forced theatrical moaning pounding through this flimsy wooden door. The clerk smiles and shrugs. "Sorry, gentlemen but it seems her last session is running late--"

Going against your better sense you push past him and open the door unceremoniously. He sputters in disbelief. "Sir, you can't go in there!"

His outburst seems to have garnered the attentions of the room's other three occupants, and you don't bother to look away as the two young men screwing the living hell out of this prostitute freeze in surprise and direct their attention to you. "You wanna fuck off, pal?" one of them growls.

You push the sleeve of your right arm up and flash your Izumo brand at them, and their expressions morph from indignant to terrified in less time than it takes you to smile. Within moments they're struggling back into their pants and running from the room. In their wake, an attractive, harassed-looking young woman glares up at you.

"What the hell is wrong with you, Makoto?"

She sighs angrily and turns to the clerk, who looks a little beside himself. "He's fine. He can stay," she grumbles, shimmying back into her panties and shirt. The clerk gestures vaguely at Tokitoh, hidden behind you, and fumbles for words.

"Him, too?" he mumbles.

Anna arches an eyebrow and you step aside to push Tokitoh into the room. You close the door sharply behind yourself and turn to find your roommate staring at his shoes like they hold the cure for fucking cancer and Anna glaring at the opposite wall.

Now this is interesting. It smells like cheap perfume and musk and sweat in here, with a sharp undertone of hopeless loss. The scent lingers in your nostrils for longer than you're truly comfortable, and absently you wonder if Tokitoh's unnaturally heightened senses can sort through these unpleasant odors clinging to the yellowing walls and pick out the slap of desperation tying them all together.

"Would you like to explain why you just barged in here in the middle of my shift?" Anna asks the wall, lighting a cigarette and looking decidedly put-out.

You sit down on the edge of a coffee table and pull out your own pack of Seven Stars, firing up, sighing. "I'm a little pressed for time," you say, and she shoots you an incredulous look. "I need information on some of your clientele."

Anna scoffs and stands up, stalking over to you on long, slender legs. She runs a hand through her bleached-blonde hair in exasperation. "Makoto, I have a phone, y'know."

You smile unnervingly up at her around your cigarette's filter. "I lost your number."

"Then how the hell did you find out where I work?" she hisses.

You turn to look pointedly at your hitherto silent companion. Anna frowns. Her pretty green eyes linger on Tokitoh's embarrassed form a little longer than necessary, and you can't help the cold, possessive anger that wells up into your eyes when she looks back at you.

She takes a step back, startled by the shift in your expression and the rage bleeding into it. "Oh, no!" she says firmly, shaking her head. "I don't know what he told you, but nothing like that happened!"

Your eyebrow arches at her questioningly and she snorts in disbelief. "You don't believe me? Ask him!"

You frown. "That isn't why I'm here, Anna." It doesn't escape you how easily you can say her name, even now. Truth be told, she was never just a convenient fuck for you. Nothing about Anna was ever what you'd classify as 'convenient.' Women rarely are. But you didn't care for her nearly as much as she loved you, and you know that she loved you.

And maybe that's why you're a bit ticked off that she's showing so much interest in Tokitoh and he's acting so obviously fucking guilty.

Maybe he fucked her. You still aren't altogether certain how they know one another, or what this tension is between them, palpable enough to choke on. Maybe he showed up here looking for something, and his dick found it in Anna.

But that's stupid, you realize, puffing on your cigarette with single-minded intensity. Tokitoh simply doesn't operate like that. It isn't his style. Staring at the soft curves of her hips--curves that you yourself have used before as leverage in more carnal endeavors--you understand that your cat is simply too awkward and shy when it comes to sins of the flesh. He still blushes like a fucking virgin when _you_ touch him.

Which means that if they did engage in some fumbling version of sexual promiscuity, Anna would have been the one to instigate things. And considering that she makes her living with her thighs open to anyone with a decent roll of money, that doesn't really surprise you. It does, however, make you exceptionally angry. Tokitoh is no innocent, by any variation of definition, but he certainly doesn't come across as the type of deviant that would frequent a whorehouse. She would have to have taken serious advantage of his endearing idiocy where it concerns women.

Technically you suppose this means that Anna fucked him. You will down another homicidal impulse and exhale smoke and rage.

When Tokitoh finally breaks the awkward tension in the room by speaking you pay rapt attention. "Nothing happened, Kubo-chan," he mumbles, but he has the good sense to look you in the eye, however much he obviously doesn't want to. You know that he's telling the truth, but it doesn't get rid of that knot festering in your stomach or the automatic twitch in your trigger finger. "She just..."

Anna has the decency to blush a bit as she finishes his sentence for him. "Tried." The way she mutters that single word and drops her eyes to the ground is indication enough--to you, anyway--that she doesn't regret her actions. What she regrets is that he turned her down. And that doesn't sit well with you at all.

"That's irrelevant," you smile coldly. "I came here for information on some of the Tojou youth kids that you service," you say evenly.

She nods and takes a drag from her cigarette and sits down on the coffee table beside you. Her hip is pressed against yours and she leans her head against your shoulder. She smells like generic perfume over used latex. "I can get their info from the front desk, if you want," she sighs, one hand falling to your knee.

She's trying her damnedest to distract you from the seething fury building in your eyes, but it won't work. You're not one of her johns, and you know these tactics all too well. You've never been a pushover for a great body and a pretty face. "I need more than that," you say.

Anna frowns. "If you want names and collection routes you're out of luck," she pulls away. "They aren't exactly discussing Yakuza business when they're balls deep in me."

You chuckle, but there's no amusement in it. This whole field trip was a waste of time, and all you've succeeded in doing is piss yourself off. It's an asinine thing to get mad over, but you can't really help it. You've always been mildly irrational where Tokitoh is concerned, and that's being generous.

Anna gets up and tosses her long blonde hair over her shoulder before walking back over to the couch to slump against the armrest wearily. "I'm sorry, Makoto," she sighs, but you can tell that she doesn't really mean it. "It sucks to need a favor and find yourself up shit creek without a paddle, doesn't it?"

The maliciousness in her voice surprises you a bit. You have absolutely no idea what she's referring to--because she's obviously implying something between the lines--but you don't like her tone. And before you can open your mouth to retort, Tokitoh steps between the two of you and holds up a hand to stop you.

"Anna, it isn't his fault," he says grudgingly. "I never told him you called."

Her green eyes shoot up to Tokitoh's face in shock, then outrage. "_What_?"

His face is the spitting image of shame. "I-I got upset when you called, and after you told me about... y'know, I guess I got jealous. I never told him you needed his help. And I didn't tell you because I was kind of pissed, Kubo-chan. I'm sorry." He drops his gaze to the floor like a child caught stealing candy from the store.

You meet Anna's eyes and she smiles incredulously and shakes her head. The anger drains from her pretty face. "Unbelievable," she sighs. "You really know how to pick them, Makoto."

Tokitoh looks up at her, bristling. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?!"

You stand up and smack him in the back of the head, but there's no force behind it. "It means that you'd make a very poor secretary." Your own temper has vanished in the wake of his little confession, and you can't help but berate yourself mentally for having so little faith in him. You've never really been able to trust people, but with Tokitoh it's second-nature. It's something about the brightness of his eyes and that reckless smile that make you trust him implicitly, and only a female could have made you doubt that.

For her part Anna looks from him to you and rolls her eyes. "Well, that clears things up. And here I thought you were just avoiding me," she drawls and smiles at him suggestively. Tokitoh blushes furiously again and looks to you for some sort of assistance.

You shake your head in amusement and get to your feet. "Sorry to have intruded," you tell Anna, turning to the door. Tokitoh takes that as his cue to escape and bolts out into the hallway without a backwards glance. As you reach the threshold of the door Anna grabs your elbow and tugs. You glance over your shoulder at her with your eyebrows raised questioningly.

"Makoto, I'm sorry about what happened with him," she says quietly. "I think I might have traumatized him."

You smile. "I doubt it. He's always acted like that around women. I don't know why."

She nods and the two of you stand there for a moment, you staring at the floor and her staring at your back. You feel like she wants to say something else, but she doesn't have the courage to speak. So you ask the question on your own mind instead. "What the hell did you say to him, anyway?"

Anna smiles sadly. "I told him that I was your first."

Ah. So that explains the animosity between them. And why Tokitoh had been so inexplicably agitated that night that you told him not to come home. "I didn't realize that he wasn't just a fling for you until he dragged me down to the Mr. Donuts and practically begged me to help him get you out of jail. And I told him not to take it too hard, because you just don't like being tied down to people..."

She shakes her head in wry amusement and looks at you with her sad, pretty green eyes. "He had this completely serious expression on his face and he said that you belonged to him. And I remember thinking that he was a good kid, but he was going to get his heart broken."

You smile and look down the hall at your roommate leaning against the wall and fidgeting nervously. When he realizes that you're watching him he averts his violet eyes and blushes again.

"You actually love him, don't you?" Anna asks quietly, staring at your back.

_So much that it fucking terrifies me_, is what you think to yourself. You turn and kiss her on the cheek and smile enigmatically and walk away. You catch up to Tokitoh down the hall and he follows you silently, hands shoved into his pockets, head hung.

As you pass the disgruntled clerk and push through the front doors Ryoji looks at you expectantly but you shake your head. He kicks a beer can down the gutter in disappointment, and you all three head back towards the nearest subway station.

"Ne, Kubo-chan?" Tokitoh mumbles beside you.

You can tell from the miserable expression on his handsome face that he's about to apologize his little heart out again. You decide then that you're uncomfortable with how much his sad violet eyes remind you of the perpetually haunted look in Anna's pretty, melancholy green ones.

So before he has a chance to speak again you sling your arm around his shoulders and pull him closer and press your lips against his temple on this crowded, busy sidewalk in the heart of Yokohama.

"Don't apologize for things that haven't yet happened, or circumstances outside of your control," you say quietly, feeling immensely wise, smiling.

He gives you a dubious look, like he doesn't understand a word of what you've said, but his beautiful violet eyes are a little brighter after that.


	12. Beretta 11

Disclaimer: Kazuya Minekura owns Wild Adapter. I do not.

Warning: Language, Ryoji's hair-brained schemes.

Notes: This chapter is the product of a ten-hour shift in the projects (I work in private law enforcement) and an interesting conversation with an old homeless man who believes that he is the second coming of the Messiah. Hey, who am I to judge? Also, it was brought to my attention that I'm having compatibility issues with my formatting between OpenOffice and DocX. Hopefully those are fixed, now??

**Beretta 11**

brkstrtrcr

June 2009

Suffice it to say Ryoji is becoming increasingly tense as the day wears on. You've surmised from what little information Kou has thus far been able to provide and your own fragile understanding of Tojou's inner workings that their youth gang is considerably larger than your own, and being outnumbered has never been a favorable position in your opinion.

So as your second-in-command crumples up his third empty cigarette pack of the day and tosses it into the wastebasket beside your desk, you frown. You're really no closer to finding a suitable plan of action for handling this latest threat from Tojou, and while it would be fairly simple to send Tokitoh wandering into their headquarters as bait, you really do prefer your cat without bullet holes in his pretty little skull.

At this point you've decided two very important things. First, you have to get Sekiya alone--or at least, with a relatively small band of his men. Taking on their entire youth group would be virtually suicidal. Secondly--and perhaps most importantly--you have to assume that Tojou now views Tokitoh as a fully-fledged and initiated member of Izumo.

This second part is vital. They won't openly attack a rival Yakuza member on his own turf and risk a retaliation, but that also means that he can't simply waltz onto Tojou territory without being killed on the spot. You aren't willing to chance that every member of the rival Yakuza faction knows who--and _what_--the hell he is. That's a gamble with stakes too high even for a mahjong pro like yourself.

So you either need to find a neutral location in the midst of gang-riddled Yokohama, or this entire 'bait-and-ambush' trick of Ryoji's--as ingenious a plan as it may be--simply will not work.

And you muse on this while staring up at the ceiling of your office, boots propped up on a corner of your battered old desk, arms folded behind your head. The overhead fan makes lazy, thin clouds of your cigarette smoke and it helps you concentrate over Ryoji's angry muttering, Tokitoh's soft snoring from the other side of the room.

He's been sleeping quite a lot, lately. That hasn't escaped your notice. And you think for a brief moment that it has something to do with his right hand's development, which your observant eyes have also been watching warily. The soft brownish-red fur covering that appendage has spread, past the confines of his well-worn black glove and further up his wrist. You assumed that it was simply your innate paranoia at first, but you've seen the way he tugs the leather up when he thinks that you aren't looking, trying desperately to hide this change in his affliction.

Kou's mentioned it as well.

And Tokitoh's body temperature, always a bit higher than the average person's, has been skyrocketing the past few weeks, until it drags you from sleep and bed and into the front room of the Toukohan in the middle of the night. It's like trying to sleep under a furnace, and twice as disconcerting, because Tokitoh doesn't seem to notice.

Those little episodes he has where he doubles over in pain, clutches his right hand to his chest, and grits his teeth in silent cries of pain? Yeah, those have increased in number and severity recently as well. He actually screams out loud now, drowned out in the steam and pelting water of the shower, but you sit on the other side of the door and smoke and listen, because it's all that you can do.

You aren't naïve or idealistic. You know that eventually this disease or whatever it is will kill him. You understand that he'll lose his whole mind, and Tokitoh will fade from his eyes permanently in the wake of something much more primal and terrifying, and he'll shred himself into pieces with that horrible hand.

You had just hoped, stupidly, that it would be later rather than sooner.

Stupid Kubota.

"What are you thinking about?"

If it weren't for the agitated tone in Ryoji's gravelly voice or the nervous tick in his eyebrow, you'd laugh at the absurdity of his 'worried-girlfriend' question.

"Time-bombs," you reply evenly. You ignore his confused expression and sit up in your chair, planting your feet on the floor and pushing your glasses up the bridge of your nose.

"Right," he rolls his eyes at your nonsensical response and sighs. "I'm thinking that we'll have to contact Sekiya somehow. Get him to meet us somewhere."

You arch an eyebrow at the blonde. "Oh?"

He glares. "Well we can't just parade onto their turf, can we? If any one of us sets so much as a fucking pube on the other side of West Yokohama Crossing we're as good as dead."

You nod at the logic in that statement. "What you're saying is that we need a common ground?" It's more rhetorical statement than question, but his train of thought is running parallel to your own. And you think of all the places that you've encountered in Yokohama short of police stations where Yakuza members are hesitant to spill blood, and your mind comes up blank, because there really isn't anywhere at all that _you_ would be reluctant to kill someone--

"Church," Ryoji breathes, his gaze unfocused, and then those intelligent coffee-colored eyes jump to yours. "We need to meet him in a church with a lot of people inside."

You can't help the exasperated smile that curves your lips. He's absolutely fucking serious about this. It's actually somewhat poetic, in a morbidly religious kind of way, but then again you've never been religious.

Your eyes trail over to Tokitoh, sprawled across the couch in the corner of your dimly-lit office, and you remember him leaning down over you in your old apartment, just before your botched infiltration of the Fortune's Fang cult, and asking you who your god was.

You'd wanted to respond 'stray cats,' but you had murmured something altogether insignificant and disinterested as you looked up into the eyes of your god.

Maybe that's why you seize onto this incredibly cliché idea of your partner's. Or maybe it's because you can't come up with anything more clever at the moment, distracted as you are. It'll do for now, at any rate.

"Which church?" you ask no one in particular.

Ryoji smiles deviously. "I know a place."

The next day you're trudging through ankle-deep snow towards his proposed stage for the showdown with Sekiya. The snow in the city is never the fluffy, picturesque crap that you've seen in movies or postcards; it's dirty, muddy, and an altogether unpleasant affair. It clings to the sidewalks and streets with a slushy, nagging persistence, dogging your footsteps.

"Where the hell are we going?"

Tokitoh is visibly unhappy, bundled up behind you as if heading bravely into an arctic blizzard, hood pulled over his head and scarf wound around the lower half of his face. Even under the layers, he's still shivering and grumbling at the wet clumps of ice falling into his eyes. You offer him a half-smile and turn your eyes back to Ryoji, who seems to be ignoring the inclement weather with a single-minded determination. "The Church of the Sacred Heart," he announces, with a bit too much enthusiasm for your tastes.

Tokitoh rolls his eyes and shoves his hands deeper into his pockets. "Never heard of it," he mutters. Truth be told, neither have you, but then again you never made it a habit to hang out in this part of town. You're walking up the single street in the entire city that separates rival Yakuza turfs, and it was always much easier to stay well within Izumo boundaries.

You arrive in front of a huge, ornate white building with a prominent bell tower that pierces into the dreary grey sky like a knife-point. Carved stone statues ring the outer walls of the place like sentinels. The heavy iron gates stand open and foreboding before you, as if challenging you to enter.

"This is one of the only Catholic churches in the city, and it sits smack dab on the center of West Yokohama Crossing," Ryoji informs you, obviously impressed with himself. He casts a proud glance up at the brightly-colored stained glass rosetta window above the building's ancient oak doors. The painstakingly rendered piece depicts the crucifixion of the Christ, and a lone Roman soldier impaling his side with the fabled Spear of Destiny.

While the craftsmanship does impress you, the story it outlines isn't new or even interesting. You shrug casually and follow Ryoji through the iron gates, until you realize that something is missing. You stop at the top of the marble stairs that lead to the church's massive oak doors and turn to find Tokitoh staring at the glass window, wide-eyed and frozen in place.

His violet eyes carry an expression of terror. It's blatant and very real, the kind of fear that you have only seen on his handsome face when he bolts awake from violent nightmares, unseen phantoms torturing him just beyond the peripherals of his memory.

"Tokitoh?" you ask quietly, sudden apprehension twisting in your chest.

Your roommate turns his stricken gaze to you. When he speaks, his words come out in an almost disbelieving rush of breath.

"I've been here before."

_______________________________

So, I've noticed a disappointing disparagy between the number of ppl subscribed to this story and the amount of feedback that I'm getting. If you like the story, tell me. If you hate it, tell me why. Every writer appreciates constructive criticism, but what we don't care for are those who favorite a fic, lurk, and contribute nothing. Help an author out and leave a review.

Okay, I'm off my soapbox now.


	13. Beretta 12

Disclaimer: Kazuya Minekura owns Wild Adapter. I do not. If I did, it would be updated _daily_.

Warning: Slight religious bastardization, language.

Notes: Hahaha. Oh, Kubo-chan...

Special: I would like to dedicate this particular chapter to Hawkstra and dk-joy, whose heartfelt reviews made me laugh (not in a sarcastic or mocking way). I really do appreciate you guys taking the time to comment, honestly. It just helps me figure out if you like the direction that the story is taking and how I'm writing the characters. Anyone who says that fanfiction is easier to write than original crap is full of it--it's a hell of a lot more difficult to stay within "IC" guidelines for someone else's little literary monsters, and Kazuya Minekura is a very hard author to pantomime!!

**Beretta 12**

brkstrtrcr

June 2009

"I've been here before."

Ryoji turns from your cat to you with an expression of mild disbelief. "Been here recently... or?" he trails off dubiously. You both know damned well what Tokitoh meant by that cryptic comment, though. He'd said not even ten minutes ago that he had never heard of the Church of the Sacred Heart, and even if he had inadvertently passed by this building before, that recognition would do nothing to explain how frightened he looks, right now.

No, Tokitoh is talking about that elusive memory of his that was lost the moment he awoke screaming and swinging in your bedroom two years ago.

And now that fear of his is contagious. You feel the fine hairs on your arms and the back of your neck stand on end.

_"__...You think that he may have regained his memory."_

_"I've heard that it's common for people with amnesia, when they recover, to forget what happened during their illness."_

You gaze at your roommate and try valiantly to ignore the roiling in your gut, the worry that screams in the back of your brain like locked-up wheels on a freight truck. If Tokitoh looks up at you now and asks you who you are, you might just swallow your fucking gun.

"Tokki, are you okay?" Ryoji doesn't understand the sudden turmoil those simple words have created in your chest. You want to turn around and walk away, from Tokitoh and Izumo and _breathing_, but you've never been a runner. You fight the good fight, head-on, eyes wide and guns blazing.

So when Tokitoh does finally bring those wide violet eyes to meet your unsure hazel gaze, you have to consciously will yourself to stay put. It's definitely a first for you. "Kubo-chan?" he says quietly, solemnly, and you think your heart might burst through your chest and leave a cabbage-sized exit wound in its furious wake. "I want to go in there."

You aren't very confident in your ability to form coherent sentences at the moment, so you watch him trudge up the marble steps and take your sleeve in his gloved hand. You allow him to pull you towards the doors, then through, and the sound of a foreign language, not unpleasant, greets your ears.

Ryoji shudders at something that only he can hear, but he presses on behind you, walking through a small entryway and into the main assembly hall. The cavernous room is almost empty, save for the aged wooden pews that stand at silent attention to the middle-aged priest at the altar reciting what you can only guess is scripture. Your second-in-command slides self-consciously into an unoccupied pew to your left, and you follow suit without a word.

The atmosphere in this place is a little stuffy, a bit mystical, and you've never put much stock into begging invisible ancient powers for guidance through a life for which you never asked. You muse that people need God to give themselves a higher purpose, and without people God would simply not exist. You understand that your only true purpose on this shithole of a planet is to die, and the manner in which you perish is not important.

Or at least it wasn't, until Tokitoh wandered into your life.

And your cat is sitting in this rather uncomfortable booth, hip pressed against yours out of habit, his shoulders slumped and his head bowed. His brows are drawn together in concentration and his lips are moving, and you lean closer to hear him muttering vehemently under his breath.

"_...Adveniat regnum tuum, fiat voluntas tua..."_

It takes you a moment to understand that he's reciting scripture in a language that you don't comprehend, and he's speaking in time with the priest's booming voice. Beside you, Ryoji is doing likewise, though at this point he's simply mumbling and staring around you in mild astonishment at your roommate.

"..._et dimmitte nobis debita nostra sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris_..."

Tokitoh's quiet voices washes over you with the force of a car accident and you can't help but stare at his handsome face, and the pain etched into his features. His violet eyes are tightly closed as he whispers at the ground.

"..._et ne nos inducas in tentationem_..."

To your left, Ryoji is steady in his recitation of this litany but his brown eyes are fixed onto Tokitoh.

"..._sed libera nos a malo_..."

Your roommate and your partner look up at each other and their words are in lilting vernacular now as they finish.

"For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever."

The priest shuts his well-worn book at the alter and sets it carefully upon the lectern before straightening to look over his shoulder at the image of the crucifixion hanging against the wall. "Amen."

Ryoji shakes his head incredulously at Tokitoh. "I'll be damned," he murmurs. "Who taught you Latin?"

You cat looks from him to you and the confusion in his eyes makes you want to break something. "I-I don't know," he breathes. He's searching your face for some sign that you know what this is all about, an answer of some kind, but you have no witty remarks or reassurances to offer him, right now. Truth be told, you're speechless.

Tokitoh looks away from you and up to the altar, where the Father is stepping down from the raised stage area and disappearing through a side door. And before you can stop him, your cat is sprinting down the aisle after him. Ryoji mutters a string of inappropriate explicatives beside you but doesn't hesitate to follow you at a healthy run, past the altar and through the door where Tokitoh has vanished.

You find yourself in a small antechamber filled with warm, ambient light and the heavy smell of incense. The walls are lined with religious frescoes, and the priest from moments ago is staring stunned at the young man kneeling at his feet. "Father, I need your help," Tokitoh asks emphatically. "I think I used to live here."

The priest takes a calming breath and reaches down, taking Tokitoh gently by the chin and lifting his bowed head. As his kindly grey eyes survey your roommate's face you see a spark of recognition and he smiles gently. "Yes," he says, and you notice the tremor that runs the length of Tokitoh's spine. "I don't think I could forget those eyes."

Tokitoh's entire demeanor screams for information, but the priest shakes his head. "If my memory serves me correctly, you came to us as a child, but you did not stay long." He gestures for your cat to get to his feet, and smiles warmly at you and Ryoji. "Come with me."

You're lead towards the back of the building, past several rooms and into what you assume is an office of some sort. The Father sits at a desk in the corner and opens several drawers, searching for something. Ryoji looks a little awkward and out-of-place here, but you suppose that two Yakuza would tend to stand out in a sacred place like this. As you wait patiently your eyes wander around the room, over bookshelves with dusty but well cared-for volumes and more crosses than you've ever seen in one room. The walls are covered in hand-drawn pictures and finger paintings by various children, and in the center of the wall closest to you is a photograph that catches your attention.

As you step closer to it, you overlook the yellowing edges curling up away from the bright plaster behind it and focus on the smiling faces lined in rows depicted within it. At least thirty happy children gaze back at you, along with a younger version of this kindly priest, but seated on the lap of a tired but friendly-looking nun is a brooding young boy. Her arms are locked firmly around his waist; his are crossed adamantly over his small chest, and he glares out at the camera with angry violet eyes.

Tokitoh's eyes.

It almost makes you laugh aloud, because you've seen that same damned expression on your roommate's face more times than you can recount. It's his trademark 'fuck-you-and-the-horse-you-rode-in-on' look, the one that steals over his handsome face when you show him up at video games, or when Kasai puts him in a headlock just to rile him.

This photo is proof enough that Tokitoh did in fact live here at some point in his life before you.

"That's strange," the priest finally speaks, his voice laden with confusion. "The records seem to have been misplaced."

The pointed look that Ryoji throws you confirms that you're thinking the same thing--those records did not simply walk out of the church. Someone took them. And that means that someone not only knew about Tokitoh's past but took the precaution of confiscating the evidence to ensure that no amount of amateur sleuthing would yield any results here.

You gesture at the photograph on the wall and address the priest. "Father, can you remember anything at all that might help him?"

The older man walks over and gazes at the picture with a warm smile. He points to the angry little boy trapped within the nun's clutches. "Ah, yes. Matthew." He turns to Tokitoh standing beside you and chuckles. "That was what we called you. You were a very... spirited child."

Ryoji snorts rudely from somewhere over your left shoulder and tries to cover it with a cough. The Father smiles kindly at Tokitoh. "This photo was taken several months after we found you. You were left at the gates one morning. I believe you were no older than six. We never did identify the good Samaritan who left you in our care."

The Father's smile takes a sad note as he continues. "Sister Agnes took it upon herself to socialize you. She had a way with headstrong youngsters." You take mental note of his past-tense reference to the nun and assume that you'll have to rule out interrogating her. "You stayed here at the orphanage for a little over two years before a relative finally managed to locate you."

The fierce longing that sparks through Tokitoh's eyes hurts your chest, but you don't mention it. How could you fault him for wanting to know his own family, even if it's shredding your tiny black heart right now?

"Do you remember a name?" Ryoji interjects helpfully.

With a frown of concentration, the priest pauses for a moment. Then a flare of recognition crosses his weathered features and he nods. "Yes, I believe it was a man named Ichimoya."

Your eyebrow ticks, and you know that you've heard that name somewhere. It sounds so damned familiar, and so does the bile rising up the back of your throat and the flare of resentment that reddens out your vision for a moment. Ryoji gives you a blank look and a shrug, and Tokitoh's thin shoulders slump in defeat.

"Thanks anyway, Father," he sighs. The disappointed expression weighing his face down is gut-wrenching. You all three nod your gratitude to the kindly old priest before leaving the church with more questions than you'd had an hour ago. As you're passing through the iron gates outside Tokitoh pauses to take one last look at the beautiful stained-glass window inset into the bell tower. Then he's back at your side, more subdued than normal, but he still reaches out to slip his hand into your coat pocket and lace his slender fingers through your own.

Ahead of you, Ryoji is fighting with his lighter and the cigarette hanging from his lips. "Damn. I just bought this thing!" He tosses it into the street, and you understand that his frustration is not directed so much at a cheap lighter but at coming so close to finally uncovering Tokitoh's past, and having it all shot to hell by a lack of paperwork. "Y'know, we should probably relay this to Sanada--"

You freeze mid-step and stare at Ryoji in absolute horror.

Sanada.

Your mind flashes back to a police station, to a homicide investigation, to an overzealous detective interrogating you about a hotel room and a dead prostitute.

_"We know all about you, Makoto: your assault and battery charge, your stint in prison, you involvement with Izumo."_

Beside you Tokitoh's violet eyes are full of concern and a little trepidation, like he isn't sure what has come over you so suddenly, but your brain is replaying that conversation as clearly as if it had happened five minutes ago.

_"Tell me, how is Sanada doing these days? Oh, you look surprised. Yeah, we know all about Sanada Ichimoya and his shady business ventures."_

Ichimoya.

Sanada Ichimoya.

"I'm going to fucking kill him," you smile dangerously.

Your voice sounds foreign to you, a low growl with homicidal intent. Tokitoh's eyes widen in surprise and he takes a step away from you, your hands still entwined in your coat pocket.

That son-of-a-bitch knew this _entire _time...

"Uh, Kubocchi, are you okay, man?" Ryoji's eying you hesitantly, as if you've finally flown off your rocker and lost your whole goddamned mind, and who knows--maybe you have?

Maybe you're tired of the lies and the deceit and the fucking mind games. Maybe you're closer than you've ever wanted to be to cold-blooded, premeditated murder. Maybe you're going to march into Izumo Headquarters this very instance and introduce a few well-aimed bullets to that back-stabbing bastard's smug face. He's been leading you around in fucking circles, and you were too _stupid _to realize that he was the ringleader.

"Kubo-chan?"

Tokitoh's soft voice is almost enough to bring you out of this blood lust and into some semblance of rational thought.

Almost.

"We all know Ichimoya," you announce calmly, fingering the trigger guard of your gun with your unoccupied hand. You laugh brokenly and turn your eyes on Ryoji.

"What are you talking about?" he asks slowly.

Tokitoh's confused violet eyes narrow. You meet his gaze and smile with an edge of hysteria to your own voice that you have _never_ heard there before. "Sanada Ichimoya."

Ryoji gapes at you stupidly. Tokitoh shudders at the name. Your murderous intent solidifies. You shove past them both roughly, walking boldly up West Yokohama Crossing without regard to traffic, pedestrians, or your companions. You're going to Izumo Headquarters, and you're going to commit a historic murderous rampage. Then you're going to burn the building to its very fucking foundations.

And you're going to enjoy every last goddamned _second _of it.

You pull your Glock out of your coat and rack the slide, chambering a round. You don't care about police, or witnesses, or the unfavorable odds, right now. You don't care that you're strolling down the busiest street in this town brandishing a firearm. Your mission is as clear as glass in your mind. As you dart across the street, narrowly avoiding being hit by a sedan, you ignore the two sets of pounding footsteps behind you and Ryoji's shouts for you to stop, wait, don't.

"Sanada Ichimoya," you seethe, "What the _fuck_ did you do to my cat?"

____________________________________________________________________

Okay, so the rough translation for those Latin verses is:

_Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done..._

_And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil..._

Matthew 6:9

No, I'm not a Bible major--I'm a Japanese Folklore undergrad. I do not speak Latin. These are someone else's translations.


	14. Beretta 13

Disclaimer: Kazuya Minekura owns Wild Adapter. I do not. If she wants to make a doujin of this fic, however, I would love her until the end of time.

Warning: Language, implied violence, blatant sexual content.

Notes: This story is getting really fucking long, isn't it? _Shit_...

**Beretta 13**

brkstrtrcr

June 2009

"You're not thinking this through, Kubo!"

Ryoji is thundering after you, damned near slipping on the wet slush that covers the ground like your rage is suffocating your willingness to humor logic and reason. He doesn't make the mistake of attempting to physically restrain you though.

Tokitoh, on the other hand, knows absolutely no fear where it concerns you, and he rushes in front of you, planting his hands against your chest and digging in his heels to stop you. For an insane heartbeat you almost punch him, deck the fierce worry out of his beautiful violet eyes. Your fury knows no bounds right now.

"Kubo-chan, _stop_! You're just going to get yourself killed!"

You do not want to listen to this. You shove him back a step and dodge around him. "So be it," you growl. Your goal is clear. No one is going to stop you from finishing this new little personal crusade.

You curse as something connects solidly with your lower back, knocking the air from your lungs, shoving you forcefully into the side of a nearby building. When you turn around, gun-in-hand, Tokitoh is glaring at you for all he's worth. "I'm not going to let you do this," he says boldly, but you both recognize the tremor of trepidation in his voice.

You smile your scary smile and dare him with your eyes to try to stand in your way. He hesitates.

Ryoji doesn't. "Kubo, listen to him, man. He's looking out for you. Running into Izumo Headquarters and shooting the place up isn't going to help us find out about Tokki's past, or deal with Sekiya." Against his better judgment he steps forward and lowers his voice so that only you can hear him. "That kid will die if he loses you," he sighs in frustration. "He won't last a fucking day on his own. Trust me. I saw him lose his whole fucking mind the last time you did something uncharacteristic and stupid, remember?"

His brown eyes are as honest as always and it takes the edge off of your anger, holds your bloodlust in check like floodgates straining under violent storm-surge. You look over his shoulder at Tokitoh, the dejected set of his mouth and his eyes, and those turbulent waters quiet, settle, abate. Ryoji's right. It pisses you off, but he's right.

"Okay," you concede, shoving your Glock back into your coat pocket. "What now?"

You don't need to elaborate on that question. They both know what you're asking. How do you handle this information about Sanada? What does this mean for your little pact to protect Tokitoh? Does Sekiya know about any of this, and if not, would it be wise at this point to just fucking defect to Tojou? Would they even entertain the idea of taking in the man that devastated their offices two and a half years ago?

For the first time in your young life, you feel your mind wearing down under the strain of so much critical thinking, and it reminds you of the first time that you played mahjong against your uncle.

"I vote that we call it a day. You're going to give yourself a goddamned aneurism, man," Ryoji chuckles good-naturedly, clearly relieved to see you talking sense again. "Give me a few hours and I'll meet you at the Toukohan. I think that we could use your Chinese pal's input on this one. Hell, call your copper uncle, too."

Team Braintrust, unite.

As you can't seem to come up with a better idea at the moment, you nod and watch Ryoji ruffle Tokitoh's hair affectionately before heading up the street.

That leaves you and your cat standing on the sidewalk in the snow, staring at each other in an entirely new light. You broke some unspoken rule with what you've just done, and you can't help but feel in the proverbial dog house, so-to-speak.

Today is turning out to be chock full of new fucking experiences and situations, isn't it?

And you really aren't certain of what to say to him. You're torn between apology and ignorance. "Tokitoh--" you start to say, and and you stumble over his name for the first time in two years.

"Don't," he interrupts. He rolls his eyes and takes your hand and starts the long walk back to Chinatown, grumbling for the entire twenty minute trek about how stupid you are, but you're pretty sure that he's never held your hand quite this tightly, this desperately.

Once inside the dry warmth of Kou's shop, you let Tokitoh inform him, rather rudely, to expect company, and your roommate practically drags you up into your tiny bedroom. He takes the liberty of calling your startled uncle himself while you both shrug out of cold, wet clothes and try to chase the chill out of your bones. He hangs up from his abrupt and brief call, flops down onto the mattress with a boneless grace all his own and rubs the heels of his hands against his eyes.

"Why are you doing this?" he asks quietly, and you pause in the middle of pulling a clean shirt down over your head to understand that he's addressing you and not some figment of his internal monologue.

"Getting dressed?" you ask vaguely.

Scarred hands fall to his sides to reveal an annoyed violet glare. "No, idiot. Why are you doing all of this? The Yakuza, Sanada, your apartment, me," he clarifies. "Why the fuck are you dealing with all of this? It really has nothing to do with you."

You frown down at him. "I'd say that it does."

"Yeah, only because you _made _it your problem. The minute Izumo came after me you could have left me in an alley, or put a bullet in me."

Touche.

You suppose that you've never thought about the 'why' so much as the 'how'. So why, dear Kubota, _are _you risking life and limb for this stray cat?

Because you're bored? Because it's exciting? Because you've been hopelessly in love with this kid since the moment he broke your goddamned arm?

That sounds a bit masochistic, and a bit fucking _gay_, even for you.

"Nevermind," he grumbles at the ceiling. "You're just going to make another one of your smart-assed wisecracks. It doesn't matter."

And you realize as you watch him that it really does matter to you, though you don't know why. But you can't explain it, so you lower yourself onto the mattress over him and kiss him instead, because it's a language that you both understand. It's a common ground between a man who hides behind his wit and sarcasm and this kid who wears his heart on his sleeve and shields it with brash, blunt honesty. You can't explain your feelings and he can't _stop _feeling.

What a fucked-up pair you make.

Soon the why's and how's and what's blend into the background, though, and all that matters is his lips against yours and his strong, thin body held tightly against you and the way his voice vibrates through your chest as he murmurs against your mouth that he loves you, that he hates you, that he doesn't need you, that he'd forget to breathe without you.

You kiss him with more force, practically shove your tongue down his throat because you don't want to hear him confess to you like this, plead with you for something that you've already promised him. You tell him with your lips, your hands, your hips that you aren't going anywhere. The way that he arches against you solidifies your resolve. This addiction that you have to violet eyes and sharp teeth and this lithe, slender frame of his is dangerous, but you've always been attracted to volatile things.

His deft fingers have your shirt over your head and your jeans unzipped, shoved haphazardly down your hips before you can protest, but with Tokitoh's wicked little teeth on your collarbone and his fingers stuttering up your bare ribs, why would you want to? He's fierce in his contact with you tonight, possessive and nearly desperate. It's got you rock-hard and grinding down mindlessly against him. This shift in power, control doesn't phase you at all. You're so tired of having to make the right decisions, in the correct order, fast enough to stay alive that giving into him is like lifting the weight of these past two years from your shoulders. This trust is second-nature.

"Kubo-chan, look at me," he breathes into your ear. His eyes are feral as he gazes up at you and it drags a deep groan from you as you push your hips down against his. Something in the back of your overworked intellect supplies you with the vague notion that you're going to let him fuck you if he keeps this up. The dangerous smile he gives you translates directly to the coiling sexual tension in the pit of your stomach.

"Hm?"

Tokitoh reaches between your bodies without warning and grabs your dick through your underwear. Your eyes widen by a fraction of an inch and you choke on a low, heartfelt moan, staring down at him. "Even if we can't find a way out of this," he says roughly, his gaze steady and his voice confident, "I'm with you."

To hell and back. But you've known that all along, haven't you?

And something about the brutal honesty in his eyes and the conviction in his voice breaks down the last of your inhibitions. Fifteen minutes later he's balls-deep in you, sweat creeping down the side of his face, teeth gritted and hands holding onto your hips hard enough to bruise. You don't care. You've never let anyone claim you like this, mark you as their own, but the possessive dedication in his breathless groans spurs you to new heights of depravity. His inexperience bleeds into the act in the form of his erratic rhythm, his jerky movements, but it makes this entire encounter that much more intense.

Tokitoh is slamming into you like a crazed man, and it's because of you. He's trying to prove a point to you. He's loyal to a fault, to the end, and you mean more to him than anything else that he knows. The kid's only got a two-year memory, but this is still an enlightening reality.

It hurts, this desperate, do-or-die sex, but you won't tell him that. This is pure, unadulterated, and very real, so you bite your tongue, draw blood, and memorize the way his half-chewed fingernails feel slicing little crescent moons into your hipbones, the way his too-thin chest curves over your back, the sound of his labored breathing against the back of your neck.

You know that he'll lose it soon from the tremors running through the arms that he locks around your waist and shoulders. He pulls you upright, back against his chest, and the change in angle of entry drags a breathless curse from his lips. The words 'stamina' and 'endurance' probably don't exist in his underdeveloped personal dictionary, yet. He's probably three or four good heartbeats away from plummeting over the jagged edge of orgasm because of a pure lack of experience. Just the knowledge that you've done this to him, driven him out of coherent thought, is enough to push you over that razor-sharp precipice, and you fall willingly, gladly, groaning loudly at the ceiling, head thrown back against his shoulder, staining the sheets beneath you.

Tokitoh's voice is a strangled half-cry of surprise as you tighten spasmodically around him and he rams into you one final time with enough force to knock his head against yours with an audible 'crack', but he's beyond caring. So are you. Every muscle in his scrawny frame tenses like a violin string as he blows his load into your already-aching body, holding you so tightly against his heaving chest that you might suffocate. Your mind is too fuzzy to contemplate the literary ironies of dying in his arms, so instead you slide wearily from his lap, his shaking thighs, and slump against his sweat-soaked chest.

Words are outside of your comprehension right now. He's having a difficult enough time remembering how to breathe. You have the hazy notion that your ass is going to hurt for several days. And before you can find something appropriate to say after taking your cat's relative virginity, he pushes you down onto the mattress, heedless of the mess you've both made of these sheets, and starts all over again.

You don't have the heart to tell the kid 'no'.

Toki-boy's a damned monster!

Yeah, I know it took them all of thirteen chapters to finally get around to the sex, but that's plot development, my friends. And I just can't picture Kubota 'on top.' Honestly. He's too laid-back and generally lazy.

And he's a complete fucking pushover when it comes to Tokitoh. -.-;

On a literary note, I understand that the exact wording during their little recreational activities sounds a bit crass and not at all flowery, but in my opinion Wild Adapter is one of the grittiest series I've ever read, and I respect it for that edge of jaded realism. To quote a friend, "this ain't your grandma's love story." Lmao.


	15. Beretta 14

Disclaimer: Kazuya Minekura owns Wild Adapter. I do not.

Warning: Language, sexual references.

Notes: I know that it's been almost six months...

**Beretta 14**

brkstrtrcr

December 2009

Your uncle is giving you a very odd look tonight. Considering that you came half-limping into the front room of the Toukohan, sat down on the couch with an audible hiss of pain, and Tokitoh's grinning like a son-of-a-bitch, you think it's safe to assume that everyone is well aware of what you just spent the last two hours doing.

Kou is his normal, implacable self, chatting quietly with Ryoji over tea. Your reporter friend knows just enough local gossip to fuel a small tabloid, so he and Kou are well-matched when it comes to information circles. Tokitoh's face slips from smug to properly-embarrassed as Kasai shifts that odd expression from your eyes to your cat's. It almost makes you chuckle. Instead, you lean back against the worn old sofa and let your eyes slip closed as you listen to Tokitoh chew on his fingernails and the idle chatter around you.

You're drifting towards sleep when Ryoji directs his voice to you. "Yo, Kubo. I've already explained most of this to them."

You nod and turn to arch an eyebrow at your uncle in silent questioning. As much as you are loathe to admit it, you really do value his advice. His well-lined and perpetually exhausted visage still carries that strange expression though, and he holds your gaze for a moment while an unvoiced internal debate plays out in his eyes. Finally, he inclines his grey head towards the shop's front door, getting slowly to his feet.

The hesitation in his eyes sends up a warning flag in your tired mind, but you follow him outside all the same. You don't miss Tokitoh's violet gaze on you both. He doesn't move to shadow you.

The evening air is ridiculously cold, and considering that you're wearing your previously abandoned tee shirt and a pair of battered old jeans, ripped at both front pockets and one knee, you repress a violent shudder but offer Kasai your full attention. The last time that you saw him display this degree of awkward nervousness was the day that you showed up unannounced and unwanted on his doorstep after your mother died.

"I need to come clean with you about something," he says quietly, eyes darting left and then right in an old paranoid habit. "You remember when Toki-boy went missing, and you asked me not to get involved?"

You nod. How could you forget? After that solid punch to the jaw your uncle delivered, that day is etched into your mind forever. "Well, me and Araki had some information, but we didn't think it would help you. I came across it completely on accident, really."

You're all ears, now. What could they have possibly discovered that is causing your uncle to avoid your gaze, hang his head like this?

And as if a set of proverbial floodgates have been opened, he starts talking in one long, continuous rush of words. "Tokitoh's real name is Ushio Minoru. He's the son of some upper-echelon political figure in the Japanese government. The man died a few months back, and I found this," he retrieves a crumpled-up newspaper clipping from his inside coat pocket and hands it to you. "It's a memorial article. I saw the picture, and I just knew that kid is Tokitoh."

The face smiling up at you is identical to the one in the photo on that priest's office wall. The only difference is that this kid looks very happy, healthy, and well-cared for. And his eyes are blue. "I'm guessing that the Wild Adapter changed his eye color, as well," your uncle says quietly, almost reading your mind. You both gaze at the clipping, at the normal and loving family preserved forever on ink and paper. "His mother and older brother died in a bus accident of some kind in Vietnam when he was about five years old. He was listed as missing, and after a while I guess they just stopped looking."

You aren't quite sure of how to respond to this information, but you silently hate the part of your mind that experiences sharp relief at the idea of his family being unable to claim him. To take him away from you. And would they really have wanted him back, anyway? He's fifteen years older now, tainted and dangerous. He really isn't Ushio Minoru any longer, is he?

Kasai sighs heavily and leans back against the front exterior wall of the Toukohan. "I'm sorry that I didn't tell you sooner. I just... I didn't think it would do any good, and I know how he responds to that name..." he trails off weakly.

How would Tokitoh take this, you wonder. And would it merely be cruel to tell him? To taunt him with the ghost of a family dead and gone?

"Don't say anything to him about this," you finally murmur, staring at a fifteen year-younger version of your stray.

Kasai nods, lighting a cigarette, taking a deep drag and letting his head fall back against the cold brick of the wall. "It still doesn't tell us how he ended back up in Japan," he mutters. "Or what that bastard Sanada did to him."

"Mn." You tear your eyes away from the clipping and shove it into your back pocket. Something in you is terrified to tell him. It's akin to the paralyzing fear that threatened to choke you back at the Church of the Sacred Heart. You're afraid that if you tell Tokitoh about this his memory _will_ come back, and he'll forget your name and the things you've done to protect him. He'll forget that possessive, fierce loyalty to you.

But he might remember exactly what has happened to him, what Sanada did and how that right hand of his got to be the way that it is. It's one hell of a gamble. You just don't like these odds.

"This is ridiculous," you sigh, chuckling despite yourself.

Kasai shoots you a wary, questioning glance. You meet his eyes and smile deprecatingly at the irony of this situation. "If I tell him, he might remember everything. And if I tell him, he might forget everything." Because right now, Kubota Makoto and Yokohama are everything to this kid, his whole world.

And as much as it unnerves your pride and your self-reliance to admit it, Tokitoh is your reason for living, for breathing, for fighting.

Your uncle shakes his head sadly. You sigh in defeat. "So do I tell Tokitoh?" you ask no one in particular.

And your blood runs cold in your veins when you hear a voice so achingly familiar speak from within the Toukohan's doorway. "Tell me what?"

Kasai drops his half-finished cigarette into the snow, he's so startled. Tokitoh has always had that pesky habit of being ridiculously goddamned _stealthy _when it suites him...

You exchange a loaded glance with your uncle, communicating in seconds the threat of violence, and you know he won't say anything to your cat. He excuses himself rather hastily and disappears into Kou's shop, leaving you very under-dressed, cold, and a mental nervous wreck outside on the street. Tokitoh's gazing at you hard, trying to read your expression, standing in the doorway. "Kubo-chan?"

If there has ever been a time in your life that you mutely prayed for divine intervention, it's now. But you don't believe in a god beyond the scrawny stray staring at you in jeans and a sweatshirt, and you know that he isn't going to assist you in this endeavor. No, it's all on you Kubota.

Don't fuck this up.

"Kasai found something," you say blandly, extracting the newspaper clipping from your back pocket and handing it to your roommate. You hate yourself for doing this. You just can't bring yourself to lie to him.

Tokitoh stares at it for a moment, his brow knit in concentration. You watch his violet gaze search the photo for a long minute, freeze on one particular face smiling back at him, and your mind screams for you to grab the paper from his thin, scarred hands and rip it into shreds, but you can't seem to do it. Then Tokitoh's eyes widen, and his hands start shaking. His mouth falls open in stunned recognition. "Mom?" he whispers in disbelief.

His hushed voice sounds like your heart breaking.

Your cat's gorgeous violet eyes bolt from this old family photograph to stare at you incredulously, and then he collapses into the snow.

* * *

I apologize for the delay in updating. My freshman year of college is done in less than a week and it's been.. interesting. If Minekura starts putting out updates to the manga soon I'll have more material to work with, and the updates will become less infrequent. Thanks to all of the reviewers and readers who subscribed to story alerts. I appreciate all of you.


	16. Beretta 15

Disclaimer: Kazuya Minekura owns Wild Adapter. I do not.

Warning: Language, sexual references.

Notes: New year, new chapter?

**Beretta 15**

brkstrtrcr

January 2010

Ryoji helps you drag your unconscious roommate upstairs and onto your bed, and you realize behind your concern that he really has put on some weight since the day you first carried him home, slung over your shoulder as easily as the laundry.

"Call me tomorrow morning if you decide not to come in," you partner sighs, rubbing the back of his neck wearily and gazing sadly at Tokitoh's unresponsive form. "I'll cover for you, if need be." He claps you on the shoulder affectionately before disappearing down the rickety wooden ladder. He didn't ask any questions when you struggled to get your cat in the front door of the shop; for that you are profoundly grateful. Kasai is probably downstairs explaining things to Kou. You think for a painful moment that if Tokitoh opens his eyes with no recollection of your name, explanations won't be particularly necessary anymore.

The Seven Stars in your pocket don't seem very enticing in the wake of what's transpired in the last twenty minutes. You sit down on the mattress beside your roommate and stare at his handsome face, wonder if you even want to be here when he finally comes around. And as honestly scared as you are that he'll demand to know who the fuck you are again in a morbid round of deja-vu, you know beyond doubt that you won't leave him here to wake up alone, no matter what he remembers.

Or doesn't.

So you lay down beside him, ignoring the growing ache in your ass and lower back, and wrap an arm around his waist. You muse that he rolls into you on his own, but you're certain that he's still out cold. You pull him against the length of your right side, lace your fingers through his monstrous hand, and bury your face in his soft black hair.

And you wait.

You manage to fall asleep out of sheer exhaustion. Your rest is interrupted, interplayed with nightmares and cold sweat. You dream of phantom gunmen and bullets, cruel grey eyes and a half-human beast that claws its way into your chest and tears out your heart and laughs maniacally as you bleed red and wet onto dirty concrete. A single yellow spotlight's flickering illuminates your dying moments in your sleep-drugged mind, and you understand that your life has been pointless, meaningless. You were brought into this world, unwanted, to die like an animal, unneeded.

A bruising grip on your hand drags you from this terrible dream and Tokitoh is staring down at you with wide violet eyes.

Caught between the realms of sleep and waking you reach for him instinctively, crushing your lips against his and forgetting for that single moment that he might not even know who the fuck you are. Your error is recognized too late, though. He tenses up against you. You just can't bring yourself to pull away from the softness of his mouth to witness the confusion that could be clouding his beautiful eyes. And for the longest heartbeat of your life, you wait for him to wrench away from you, to lash out at you, to break your arm again.

You're too scared to breathe.

You aren't naïve enough to believe that you can postpone the inevitable indefinitely. You just want one more minute with Tokitoh before Ushio Minoru rears up and beats the living shit out of you, demands to know what you're doing and who you are. You want to sear into your insecurity-riddled brain the feeling of his skinny frame over you, his full lips against yours, commit his taste to memory before it's all ripped away from you in a torrent of indignant protest.

When did you become so goddamned pathetic, so breakable?

And Tokitoh shows you just how breakable you've become as he crushes your hand as easily as you've shot so many nameless Yakuza, rips himself from your arms and backs away from you like a rabid animal. He's all bristles and fangs now, extended claws and hackles up, and it reminds you in some mildly amusing, half-defeated way of the angry stray that you had to feed through a nine year-old boy for so many weeks. Tokitoh is gone. This volatile stray is back.

Distantly you wonder how much trauma and strain one man can handle in his lifetime before he simply breaks under the pressure. You aren't sure if you're considering yourself or the feral creature growling at you from the corner.

Your hand is painfully broken, the fine bones in your fingers all but crushed. It doesn't hurt the way you suppose it should, like your heart pounding its way through your ribs right now, like your cold and agile mind calculating your escape route from this refuge turned containment cell. The terrified young man backed against the wall is glancing wildly around the room and searching for an exit. You know that you can't stop him if he decides to run. He'll just kill you.

You think that having to teach him to read, to tie his shoelaces, to boil water, to trust again would be your own undoing, though, so why not intercept your homicidally frightened cat? Suddenly fighting Sanada and the shadow conspiracy behind Wild Adapter pales in comparison to reconditioning Ushio Minoru a second time, and you wish that you had never picked him up out of that gutter. He could have been someone else's problem. He could have died on that cold city sidewalk. He could have left the barbed-wire fortifications around your shriveled little heart intact.

Instead, his infectious curiosity, his perpetual indignation at the horrors of life, his humanity have reacquainted you with yours, and you find yourself closing the distance between you and the cornered animal hissing and growling like vocalized pain. You've always lived on that razor's edge between suicide and _carpe diem_. You aren't sure which one you're committing when you reach out and pull him against you, when he sinks those terrible claws into your left arm and snarls at you in a combination of fear and rage.

He doesn't fight back as vehemently as you'd expected. He tenses like an overtaut violin string against you but does not run. You don't know what significance that holds for his memories or mental state, and right now you don't particularly care. Half of you wants those talons to rip apart your torso and spill your insides onto your shoes, wants this whole sordid affair over and done with. Half of you wants that flare of disoriented and terrified recognition that flashes in his very violet eyes to be real.

"W-Who the hell are you?" he asks shakily.

You smile without humor and watch the claws of that gruesome right hand of his sheath themselves deeper into your left arm. Fuck, does that hurt. "Kubota Makoto," you answer quietly, as if you hadn't known him inside and out for all this time, as if you were strangers. But then again, now you are. Again.

"Kubota?" He's never used your surname much, and it sounds awkward muttered in his voice, spat like a curse. "Where are we? What did you do to me?"

Carefully, you reach over and take his wrist, holding his gaze as you do. You pull his claws slowly and excruciatingly from under your skin, ignore the blood that wells to the surface and slides down your arm like morbid rainwater. You can't bring yourself to don that characteristic smile of yours. It may have died with his memory of you, of your tiny apartment and your spicy curry and the people you've killed to protect him. "I may need stitches," you explain. Your voice sounds dead and monotone, even to you. "I'll be back later."

You can tell that he wants a more comprehensive explanation, and answers to his questions, but you can't look at him anymore right now or you'll end up on a shooting rampage tonight. You back away from him, head down the stairs and ignore the shaking of your hands, the way your knees feel unable to support your body. You find Kou at his computer and take a seat on a nearby stool. You disregard the blood soaking through your shirt sleeve. "Tokitoh doesn't know who I am," you say quietly. Kou gives you a penetrating look. "I'm not sure what to do with him."

Your Chinese associate nods slowly, thoughtfully. Then he speaks carefully, and a part of you is shocked at what he says. "Perhaps this is your opportunity to rid yourself of a serious problem?"

The way he says it, and then fixes you with a completely unreadable expression makes your skin crawl. But the good doctor is correct--now would be your opportune chance to turn Ushio Minoru loose on the dirty underbelly of Yokohama and be rid of him, and Sanada, and the Yakuza. For good.

"No." The word springs from your lips with the lethal intent of a sword's downward arc in battle, and the conviction behind it is overwhelming. Kou's indifferent mask slips and a flash of approval glows in his dark eyes before he turns away from you to type a series of keystrokes into the computer.

"Then we start again," he says resolutely. "And I suggest we begin with his family connections. I expect your uncle should have some information." You nod. Love has made a fool of you in the past. You fully intend to grab it by the balls and bring it to its knees this time.

This story gets harder to write with every chapter. Let's pray that Minekura takes pity on us soon.


	17. Beretta 16

Disclaimer: Kazuya Minekura owns Wild Adapter. I do not.

Warning: Language, sexual references.

Notes: Not much plot development here.

**Beretta 16**

brkstrtrcr

February 2010

Tie your shoes, brush your teeth. Don't turn the faucet on so high or you'll get water all over your shirt. The front door unlocks to the left, the back door to the right, and the mailbox lock is still broken. No, Kasai isn't really a cop. Yes, I know that he drives a cop car. No, I won't leave you.

It's been just two weeks and Tokitoh won't leave your side. He asks more questions than ever before, blatantly argues with you whenever possible, and all the while your friends look on in awe at your patience, your calm, your parental control. Restraint is something that has always come to you naturally, fled you completely when confronted with this irrational young man, but you haven't touched him once since he woke up and broke your bones a second time. Oh, you've combed his hair and held his hand and pinned him down when he struggles and fights imaginary enemies in his sleep, but you haven't, couldn't bring yourself to touch him the way you used to. Tokitoh isn't the same person anymore.

"Sanada wants you to meet those damned Chinese drug dealers, tonight," Ryoji mutters as he enters the Toukohan through the front door and bows respectfully to Kou sitting behind the main counter, packaging cocaine into individual plastic baggies by grams. It almost makes you smile, the complete hypocrisy of the situation, but then again it isn't really that funny. Tokitoh growls at the television from the floor at your feet and you reach out idly to ruffle his hair. He always did get so worked up playing those video games.

You watch your Yakuza partner flop down on a neighboring couch dejectedly, his sharp brown eyes tracking Tokitoh's pixelated avatar across the television screen as he slays maidens, rescues dragons, fights Heaven and Hell in an epic eight-bit battle that will end with an unwelcome return to real life, because when the console powers down and the screen fades to black, Tokitoh is just as miserable as you are. The difference is that he doesn't understand why.

"What time?" you ask aloud. You know that the shipment comes in at two in the morning. You know that it will arrive by freight carrier at the Yokohama Bay dock company at the end of 14th street, second pier to the left. You're asking so that Tokitoh overhears you, so that you don't have to watch him shed angry tears when he thinks that you're hiding things from him again. He's certainly gotten more insecure since losing his memories a second time.

Ryoji humors you, rattles off the time and location in a sort of easy, practiced way that unsettles you deeply. You've gone from hardcore gang member, murderer and criminal to odd-couple parental unit to one Ushio Minoru, and the dynamic that's crept into your already traumatic relationship with your cat has you shuddering. He sleeps beside you at night because it's familiar to him in some strange way that he doesn't understand, and it's been complete and unholy torture to restrain yourself when you wake to him pressed against you from shoulder to shins. You muse that the only memories he did appear to retain are the physical reflexes he learned over the past few years. He hasn't broken one Playstation controller since he forgot your name a second time. He hasn't smashed a single coffee cup, ripped any door knobs from their hinges or clawed his way through any sheets. His body remembers its limits, its strength, and its surrounding, but his mind is slow to catch up.

You watch him set his jaw in concentration as he guides his binary champion through dungeons and mazes. His tongue pokes out of the corner of his mouth and he's holding his breath as his character leaps across a lava-filled pit to rescue the villagers from the clutches of evil. How long will you jump over fire for him? What happens when you get to the other side just in time to save villagers who draw and quarter you like an angry torch-wielding mob? And who's to say that the nightmarish dragon isn't actually the victim in this silly adventure?

You're making metaphors comparing your subversive war against Sanada to a Playstation game, and that's when you push up from the sofa with perhaps more force than can easily escape Tokitoh's notice, and he watches you over his shoulder with a small frown on his lips, oblivious to the goblins now devouring his on-screen hero. You don't bother to reassure him that you aren't angry with him, that you just need some fresh, nicotine-filled air. He knows that you're lying, even when you don't. It's unnerving but true, so you don't say anything at all. You just leave.

Your boots beat a steady rhythm down the sidewalk as you increase the space between yourself and your cat, and even as your mind compiles vectors and geometric arc lengths in your head, calculating the distance, you know that you need to measure your freedom to roam in not feet but city blocks. As you round the corner of your old street, your former apartment building, you watch Tokitoh throw a slobbery tennis ball to a strange dog, spill ramen down the front of his jacket as he tries to walk and eat with chopsticks, stare out across the city from your highrise balcony over the power lines above. Is there no where in this gods-forsaken city that doesn't remind you of your damned cat? You collapse bonelessly on the sidewalk between a set of abused trashcans, disturbing several unhappy feral strays and a pigeon. The felines hiss and spit indignantly before fleeing to the relative safety of nearby boxes and bags and dumpsters. You watch them leave with a growing sense of dread.

If you had left Tokitoh in that alley, would your chest hurt as exquisitely as it does at this very moment? If you had handed him over to Sanada, hadn't killed a battalion of Yakuza to protect him, would you be in that man's pocket so deeply today? If you died tomorrow, would he notice your absence, or would he find someone else to burrow into in the dead of night, in the deep of sleep, to sweat and curse and cry against as his pursuers match his strides in the darkest of dreams?

"Kubo-chan?"

Your mind snaps out of its downward spiral and focuses intently on that voice. Your eyes dart up from your contemplation of your own denims to find liquid violet watching you warily from half a foot away. He was always so quiet, despite how clumsy he is naturally. You seldom hear him approach, but today you weren't expecting it at all. This is something that Tokitoh _used_ to do—follow you on your city-wide marathon walks as you think and stretch and see. Watching him watch you as he squats down in front of you between your sprawling long legs is both familiar and awkward. You want to get up, to move away from those honest, criticizing indigo eyes but you don't. You're tired. You don't want to fight anymore. You don't think it's worth it anymore if he doesn't know your name, doesn't remember your life, doesn't return the heart-shattering, soul-shredding, mind-fucking feelings that you've harbored for him these past few years.

"You're bleeding," he says quietly, taking one of your hands into his. You watch him carefully uncurl the fist you've unwittingly made, pull your long slender fingers back and reveal the angry red crescent welts dripping down your palms from your fingernails digging into thin skin. His claws feel cool against your fingers. He doesn't wear his glove anymore. Instead, he's taken to tugging the sleeve of his sweatshirt over his hand until just his fingertips and curved nails protrude. You haven't felt brave enough to demand that he wear that hated glove in public and open that particular shitstorm of trouble. "What's wrong, Kubo-chan?"

His shoulders slump dejectedly and he holds your hand like a lifeline. You don't know how to answer his question, one of so many to which you've pondered the appropriate responses lately. Talking to Tokitoh used to be easy, effortless, honest, but now it feels more like homework ever did the few times you actually showed up for high school. You're clever with words that are hollow and hold no meaning. You're utterly lost when it comes to the feral, worried creature squatting before you on this filthy sidewalk. You reach up and grab a handful of his sweatshirt and drag him toward you so that he falls against your chest as you kiss him with bruising force. You pray to a higher power that you believe in conditionally to let Tokitoh claw your guts out, hot and red and wet into your lap, to rip your ribs aside and maim your heart so that it stops beating, stops feelings, stops breaking.

You're so very tired. Always running, always shooting, always lying and stealing. When does it end? When do the games cease, the crimes halt, the bad guys go to jail? When does Kasai and the police force scour Yokohama of the drug dealers, the pimps, the gangs and hookers? When does Kou file his business taxes? When does Ryoji cut his hair and get a real reporting job? When does Tokitoh remember who he is and go to college like a normal kid? What happens when everyone else finds their place in life and leaves you behind? Maybe it was you, and not Tokitoh, who was saved the day you dragged him home from between these trash cans and gave him a name? Maybe he's still saving you with every day, every touch, every question?

Maybe you aren't worth being saved? You were born an animal, to live and die alone. You pull back and look into those beautiful amaryllis eyes and smile self-deprecatingly. He watches, dumbfounded, as you gently push him back, then stand to your full height and walk away. Every step you take makes it a little bit easier not to glance over your shoulder at him. You're a lone wolf. You always have been. You trust that he'll make his way back to Kou's shop unscathed, but right now you can't look at him without wanting to strangle newborn babies with your bare hands. You aren't cruel by your very nature, but then again you've never been very good at reigning in your anger, bridling your rage, and those are emotions with which you've become intimately familiar. This raw, swollen and infected ache in your chest, the lead weight in your gut as you walk away from him is not the same manner of beast as your misdirected aggression and occasional homicidal jaunts. This is the type of overwhelming pain that brings about bloodshed on a biblical scale.

You lash out at a stray beer can on the sidewalk as you go, kicking it into a nearby building and shaking your head at how Tokitoh-like you've become. When have you ever felt the need to assert your animal dominance over inanimate objects? He's infested you like a virus, replicating and multiplying in your mind until your can't remember where you end, where he begins, when all of this started or how it could possibly end without one of you in a bodybag. At the corner of 13th and Bay Avenue you stop. Kou's shop is a few minutes away to the left. Sanada's headquarters is an approximately equal distance to your right.

You shake your head in wry amusement as your mind supplies countless poetic metaphors for standing at the crossroads of a decision in your life. You don't normally turn to literary inspiration to solve your own fundamental issues, and your path diverged in an urban wood several years ago. Unfortunately in Yokohama there are no roads seldom traveled. The path of least resistance would push you towards a night of bloodshed and mayhem, siren wails and spent shell casings in Sanada's office. It does seem to be a favorite hunting ground of yours. But you like to think that you've outgrown such knee-jerk, childish outlets for your frustration, and if you aren't back soon Ryoji will come looking for you.

You tell yourself that's the only reason you turn to your left and trudge down the street and into the heart of Chinatown.


	18. Beretta 17

Disclaimer: Kazuya Minekura owns Wild Adapter. I do not.

Warnings: Violence, language. I have no beta reader and didn't edit this before posting.

Note: Now that I've graduated from college I can write, again. Sorry for the year-long hiatus.

**Beretta**

brkstrtrcr

December 2010

Sekiya and the Tojou youth gang have yet to intrude upon your life, so for the time being you push them to the back burner of your mind, simmering slowly but not a mental flambe like your boss sitting across from you in the otherwise empty dining room of this Chinese restaurant. In the chair beside you, Ryoji shifts slightly. Your eyes glance to him briefly before sliding back to the documents spread out across the chipped surface of the cheap black lacquer table around which this meeting takes place. There are photographs of the Toujo gang leaders entering well-established Izumo holdings, digital images of Sekiya himself loitering in Chinatown, one block away from the Toukohan too close for your comfort. That simmering stew is thrust abruptly beside the rusted black pot labeled 'Sanada' and it reaches a rolling boil.

"I have found no explanation as to their presence in our territory, and Sekiya is courting a rather nasty demise by parading through a known Triad's neighborhood. It's brash, reckless, and not at all their style," Sanada drawls. He sits back, lights a cigarette, and you ignore your instinctive revulsion at the clinging vanilla smoke. It's absolute torture sitting across the table from the man on a normal day, but knowing what little you do now about his involvement in whatever happened to Tokitoh…

Well, it's enough to turn up the heat on his little black pot until it glows like Hell-forged metal.

Beneath the table you flex your still-mending fingers and let the sharp ache ground you. If Sanada noticed their bandaging he said nothing of it. If he knows anything about Tokitoh's recurring memory loss he's been smart enough not to mention it. The knowledge that someday you'll slit his throat and watch him choke to death on his own filthy blood is what motivates you to maintain your self-control now. Someday the Izumo will recoil in absolute terror at the very mention of your name, but not today.

"What I want from your gang is increased security. As for the two of you, I need information. At this point I don't care how you get it, but I want Sekiya to talk. Find out what he knows about Wild Adapter." Your boss leans back in his chair and smiles. The expression is probably the same one he wore when he gave Osamu the order to kidnap your cat. "Then kill him. And don't be sloppy about it. The last thing I need is the police asking more questions." Ryoji arches an eyebrow at you but you ignore him for the time being. Everyone in this room is painfully aware of your penchant for ostentatious gunfights and arson, neither of which is low-key. You suppose that means your partner will be handling the logistics of this latest assignment. But then you have no intention of killing Sekiya.

No, it just doesn't add up, this latest concern of Sanada's. Sekiya and Toujo have been a thorn in Izumo's side for years, decades. That knife-wielding psychopath has been a threat to Tokitoh since the moment he laid eyes on the kid. Both gangs had trespassed into Triad turf when necessary. So why suddenly is your boss so damned convinced that Sekiya is dangerous enough to warrant an official Yakuza execution?

"You're both dismissed for the day." You stand automatically, match Ryoji's stiff, respectful bow, and your mind kicks into overdrive as you sort through your own chaotic thoughts in order to explain them to your partner the second that restaurant door closes behind you. But Sanada reaches out as you pass, takes the wrist of your broken hand in his, and stops you in your tracks. Ryoji falters, but the older man waves him away, and so he leaves you behind with a meaningful glance over his shoulder. You know that he'll be waiting just outside.

"Kubota-kun," Sanada says, his grip around your wrist sliding down to encase your badly-damaged fingers in an unspoken threat. "Are you a religious man?" You think about Latin prayers and stained glass, and your eyes fly to meet his knowing gaze and immediately realize that action as a mistake on your part. Your gut clenches and his cruel smile grows. He knows. That bastard knows that you found that old relic of a church in West Yokohama Crossing, and he knows that Tokitoh recognized it. But how-?

You register unbelievable pain in your broken hand as he applies enough pressure to make your knees buckle. You don't flinch, don't give him the satisfaction of crying out, but you can't stop the way your hands tremble. "You will not go digging for information for which I do not ask, Kubota-kun." It isn't a request. It's a demand and you don't ask what the consequences are for defying him. You have a vivid imagination. "If you have that difficult a time remembering to whom your loyalties belong, then I'm certain I can arrange a more convincing meeting with that broken little kitten of yours."

Sanada cocks his head to the side thoughtfully, grinding your bones together so agonizingly that your legs do give out. You drop to one knee beside his chair and hold his gaze and swear to yourself that you won't look away and give him any more satisfaction. "But from what I hear he isn't so much yours nowadays, is he?" the man smiles, patronizing and with a subtle undertone of malice. "From what I hear he has a hard time remembering things."

If you could draw your gun quickly enough to shoot him before he put a bullet in you there is no doubt in your mind that you would empty your entire clip into his cruel smile. But you can't, so you don't, and you hate yourself for the relieved gasp that passes your gritted teeth when he releases your hand and kicks you in the ribs with enough force to send you sprawling to the scuffed and worn linoleum. He chuckles as he gets to his feet, straightening his suit jacket and stepping over you and exiting the restaurant without further comment. Your head falls back to rest against the tile beneath you as the door clicks shut. You cradle your badly-damaged hand to your chest and just breathe for several minutes.

"How the hell does he know?" you ask the dusty ceiling fan spinning above you. Tokitoh hasn't made an appearance at your shared office since the incident with his sudden amnesia. Ryoji is the only person in Izumo who has been in Kou's shop in the last month, and if you can't trust him then you might as well shoot yourself now. Your uncle would sooner swallow his own duty weapon than consort with Sanada; he was the one who warned you about that man years ago, at the start of your ill-fated career with the Yakuza. As for Kou…

You push yourself into a sitting position with your good hand and shake your head. Kou has never given you a reason to doubt him. So with all of your people accounted for you can be reasonably certain that the leak is not from your end. Could Sanada have people tailing you? You snort and stand up, brushing dust and dirt from your jeans. It isn't impossible, but it is highly improbable. You would have noticed that by now, and even in the unlikely event that you haven't, Ryoji or Kou would have. Hell, Tokitoh would have. But how else could he have known-

"Shit, Kubota!" Your partner hurries through the door to the restaurant and ignores the wary glances its employees give him from the back, stopping at your side and trying to catch his breath. "I walked around the block and doubled back to check on you, but his car was pulling off. What the hell'd he do to you?"

You look up at the former reporter and open your mouth to give some off-hand, unimportant quip when your eyes land on something small, black and red on your partner's shoulder. He follows your gaze and rolls his eyes, flicking the tiny thing from his coat with an annoyed grumble. "Fucking ladybugs are _everywhere_ this time of year."

Bugs. Your mind flies back past oil tankers and murder investigations to a cult and a hot summer day when you watched Tokitoh crush an electronic transmitter in his gloved hand. But how the hell would Izumo have gotten into the Toukohan to plant bugs? You sift through every person who has come and gone through Kou's shop in recent memory and come up with nothing overtly suspicious, no one worthy of investigating. So if the surveillance wasn't planted in the store, perhaps it's in a less obvious place.

"Kubota?" Ryoji is frowning beside you while he watches the gears in your head whir and churn. "What's wrong?"

What's wrong, indeed. Perhaps, you think with a mounting sense of sickening dread, Tokitoh's venture to the medical team wasn't just about drawing blood and running tests. Perhaps, because he spooked over the needles and you were the only person who could hold him down, those unscrupulous doctors had meddled. They were employed by Sanada, after all, and you couldn't watch them while restraining an angry and ridiculously strong young man against his will. "I think that if we're going to make it to the other side of town on time we'll need to take the subway," you finally say aloud, giving Ryoji a hard look that he acknowledges with a grim nod.

Once aboard a packed, noisy train car you explain your suspicions to him, and he slams his knuckles into the safety glass of the window beside you in anger. "He won't stop at anything to get what he wants, will he?" he growls rhetorically. "That rat bastard." His outrage is genuine, and that reassures you of his motivations. Good. Ryoji Takizawa is one less person in Yokohama that you'll have to kill. "How are we going to find it?" He's referring to the listening device that you're now positive they've implanted into your cat. For a long moment you wonder if Sanada enjoyed listening to Tokitoh's pulse-raising moans, his gut-wrenching tears, the way he whispered your name in his sleep. It makes you want to open fire on every innocent bystander on this fucking train, that complete and ruthless invasion of your privacy, that Sanada would turn Tokitoh into a tool to be used against you. And for what? To prove a point to you? To make you feel as powerless and nervous as he did when you decimated his youth gang?

Even Sanada is intelligent and observant enough to know that he can only meddle in your life but for so long before you kill him. He has to have realized by now just how fucking dangerous you are when provoked, and he's seen firsthand what you are capable of when Tokitoh is thrown into the mix. He knows how this game of his will end, as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow morning and winter will bow to spring. Prolonging this sordid dance is his only hope for now, but he's arrogant enough to use you to tie up his own loose ends where it concerns Wild Adapter and your cat. And that means that Sekiya has to know something about Sanada's involvement in WA, and that would explain his sudden burning desire for you to add to the metal content of Toujo's leader's skull. If you kill Sekiya now, you have no doubts that he'll take whatever he knows to the bottom of Yokohama Bay with him.

"We have to get Sekiya to talk," you say quietly into Ryoji's ear. "He knows something that Sanada's worried about." Your partner chews this over for a moment and nods.

"And how do we get that bug out of Toki-boy?" he asks.

"Carefully," you reply, leaning against the window and closing your eyes. You're tired. Every lead you get is either a dead-end or an answer that raises an onslaught of new questions. You know that killing your boss won't help you figure out how to fix Tokitoh, and you're finally able to admit to yourself now that this has been your goal all along. It's not enough to have him whole and breathing; as long as his hand is clawed and covered in fur he'll never be able to come out of hiding. As long as his nightmares chase him through his dreams he'll never be able to stop running. Getting rid of Sanada will deprive you all of answers that you so desperately need, and he'll only be replaced with someone who won't have the illustrious personal history with you to stay his hand in ordering execution. Anyone else would have killed you years ago, when you walked out of Izumo with too much information and a glimpse of what WA meant. Sanada's arrogance is all that's preserved your tainted existence for this long.

You don't care who Tokitoh really is, or where he came from, so long as he's alive. But Tokitoh _does_ care, and so it became a priority for you as well. Sanada seems hell-bent on keeping you from obtaining that information, so you know that it's worth having. He played a hand in whatever happened to traumatize and break your flatmate. Perhaps Sekiya knows what that role was. Perhaps if you threaten to cut him the way he threatened to slice open your cat you'll stand a chance of convincing the bastard to spill his proverbial guts before you can spill his very real ones. You've always been persuasive, but you think the loaded gun and dangerous smile help.

"We'll need to get Tokitoh someplace that'll jam the signal," Ryoji frowns. "Or find something that can disable it temporarily." You reach into your pocket automatically and speed-dial Kou. If he's half as good at preventing the spread of information as he is at obtaining it, he'll know what to do.

He answers on the third ring and you explain your suspicions. Your theory is met with grave silence. He's probably more than a little angry at his shop being placed under indirect surveillance, and you're sure that the Triads will have an opinion on the matter. "I see," he says calmly. "I believe that by the close of business today I can have the merchandise you seek. It's difficult to guarantee the life of electronics, of course, but I believe you will be pleased with my inventory." And that's all he says before he ends the call. You nod to Ryoji's questioning look and slip your phone back into your pocket. Kou raised a valid point. If you destroy the transmitter, your boss will know. But if it fails slowly, over the next few days, he'll be less apt to think you tampered with it. If it's damaged in an accident, smashed against a headboard or shower wall, he certainly can't fault you for it. At eight o' clock tonight, once the Toukohan is locked and the blinds drawn, you're going to give Sanada a little radio show.


	19. Beretta 18

Disclaimer: Kazuya Minekura owns Wild Adapter. I do not.

Warning: Violence, language, sexual content, Kubota.

Notes: Don't be surprised if the story's pace picks up from here. Also, it was good to hear from some of you again after so much time has passed. Glad you're still enjoying it.

**Beretta**

brkstrtrcr

January 2011

At a quarter after nine that night, once the shop is closed to prying eyes, you kneel on the floor in front of Tokitoh. He begins to protest that you're blocking his view of the TV but you clap your hand over his mouth and instead hand him a piece of paper. Ryoji and Kou come to stand behind you, and it must make a fairly menacing scene because he quiets immediately, violet eyes scanning your familiar scrawled kanji. You've spent the last twenty minutes writing down as detailed an explanation as you can manage, and emphatic instructions for him.

_You can't make any noise. It's going to hurt, but we can't risk tipping them off. Sanada could be listening right now. We're going to cut this thing out of you._

Tokitoh's wide eyes stare into yours for what seems like hours, and then he chews his lower lip and leans forward, around you and towards the Playstation. It powers down quietly, and the TV resumes broadcasting some stupid game show, its volume deafening in the silence that's overtaken the Toukohan. When your cat gets to his feet and walks away, towards the back room, Ryoji makes a show of stretching and groans loudly. "I don't know about you, but I'm beat. You mind if I crash on your couch for a while?" Had this whole fiasco been happening to someone else it would almost be comical, but you don't find a damned thing about this humorous. You know that he's trying to establish an alibi in case someone really is listening. You turn to Kou. His dark eyes convey the need for urgency—you can't afford for Tokitoh to back out of this.

You find your cat writing on the back of your instructions in the back room of the shop, his tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth in concentration. When he's done, he hands you the paper and stands before you with a strangely relieved expression on his face. You read his untidy writing carefully.

_How will we keep him from finding out we took it out?_

You motion for the pen in his hand and write.

_I've got an idea. It's going to be 'damaged' in an accident._

Tokitoh arches a questioning brow at you, prompting further explanation.

_There are a few plausible excuses for you ramming your arm into a piece of furniture. A fistfight, tripping on something and falling, or really rough sex. Which one do you think will raise the least amount of suspicion with a pervert like Sanada?_

Tokitoh's eyebrows shoot up to his hairline and his face is redder than a firetruck. He rolls his eyes angrily and pushes the paper into your chest with enough force to rock you on your feet, then stalks back into the main room of the shop. You feel a little guilty as you follow him, but if this is what it takes to ensure his safety you're positive that it's worth his embarrassment. Once out of the storage room you find Kou sterilizing medical equipment on the counter, Ryoji laying out a tarp on the floor. Your cat gives you the most pathetic look you've ever seen on his handsome face and sits dejectedly in the center of the plastic sheet. When your Izumo partner reaches out and lifts the hem of Tokitoh's t-shirt, the younger man gives him a dangerous glare and removes the article of clothing himself. Kou moves from behind the counter with a tray of wickedly sharp implements, gauze, and disinfectants.

Tokitoh tenses beside you as you reach for his left arm, the one Sanada's crack medical team insisted on using to draw blood. You run skilled fingers over his bicep, prodding until you feel the diminutive, tell-tale bump just under the surface of his smooth skin. Kou hands you a marker and you circle the implant carefully. Your Chinese counterpart cleans the area with half a bottle of expensive vodka before motioning for you to hold Tokitoh down.

You watch your cat closely as you straddle his thin hips, take his left forearm in your undamaged hand and pin it to the floor at his side. It's an eerily similar tableau of how you'd restrained him at the Izumo-run medical building and the deja-vu must be affecting him because he looks ready to bolt. He stares directly into your eyes, violet on hazel, as Kou begins the incision. You see blood sliding from the wound in your peripheral vision, but you don't break Tokitoh's gaze. Beside you, Ryoji is ready with gauze and clean water, wincing in sympathy as Kou continues to cut carefully around the implant. He's trying to ensure that the incision will look like the kind of mark fingernails might leave on skin. He's making damned sure that there's no reason to doubt that your facetious version of how the transmitter was broken is reliable.

There's a tense moment when Kou's fingers slide into the wound to retrieve the device and Tokitoh's back arches silently off the floor in pain. You lean down over him and press your forehead to his, maintaining his agonizing gaze, and he struggles to control his breathing through gritted teeth, and even with the unlicensed doctor digging into his arm he manages a strained smile up at you. You could kiss him then, pinning him to the floor of Kou's shop, his arm covered in blood, but you don't. Tokitoh's a fighter, through and through, and you know that he'll pull through this just like every time before. Broken ribs, piano wire, loaded guns, and every other implement of torture used against him don't matter so long as you're there at the end of the day.

Ryoji's brow furrows as Kou extracts the device, a tiny and delicate piece of technology, and your cat slumps against the floor in relief. Eyes finally closed, Tokitoh lays pliant while Kou stitches up the incision with expert hands, then cleans the blood from his skin. Ryoji pats Tokitoh's shoulder affectionately, clearly glad for this gruesome experience to be over.

Sweat trails from your flatmate's temple, beads on his forehead, and he pushes himself upright with his gloved hand. You're sitting rather awkwardly in his lap now but he doesn't seem to mind so you stay. The bug is now taped rather crudely to the outside of his arm, just above the thin threads binding the edges of the wound together. With a wordless, pointed look at you, Tokitoh gestures to the back room, then to the device. You nod. He's eager to destroy this damned thing. Good.

Kou and Ryoji occupy themselves with cleaning up the crime scene in the main room of the shop while you follow your cat up to your shared, makeshift bedroom. He sits down on the edge of the futon and rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands before standing again and pacing anxiously. You sit in his vacated spot and begin the tedious process of removing weapons from your person, the knife in your boot as you toss those towards the ladder, the comforting weight of a gun from the small of your back, a second pistol from the shoulder holster under your right arm. You know that there's a switchblade in one of your pockets, but before your can begin your ritualistic self-patdown you find your lap full of Tokitoh, and his crushing, demanding lips against yours stifle any questions raised by his erratic behavior.

What ensues is twenty minutes of the most desperate, frenzied, and exhausting carnal activity to which you have ever been a party, however unexpected. There is no foreplay, no sly glances and teasing touch to prepare either of you for this violent act. He quite literally rips your shirt from your shoulders, bites the hell out of your neck, and clothes become an afterthought. Tokitoh's cries are loud enough to attract the attention of your associates downstairs but there's not a damned thing about them forced or faked. The clawed welts ripped from your shoulders to your waist are real, bleeding brightly down your back. The bruise on Tokitoh's narrow waist is shaped like your grip and obvious against the jutting ridge of his hipbone. The furious way he growls into your ear, demands more, Kubo-chan? You don't recall exactly how you both ended up on the floor, but that has you pinning his thin arms over his head with your unbroken hand and fucking him hard enough to do actual damage. And that's still not enough to stop him from begging, from cussing at you and snarling. Caught up in him as you are, however, you still remember to slam his wounded left arm into the floor with force enough to make him scream.

Tokitoh arches into you, comes messily between you, and it's a simple matter of auditory stimulation and pressure that insists you follow his example seconds thereafter. As you collapse across his chest your good hand seeks out the tiny transmitter taped to the outside of his arm, and you feel relief flood you as your fingertips encounter shards and fragments of metal. Your cat hisses slightly at your weight atop him, prompting you to roll onto your side, still close enough to content yourself with his proximity. He rolls into you of his own volition, kisses you deeply. Sanada has had his show. That transmitter is so hopelessly broken that you're certain your conversation is now private. Knowing that, you wrap your undamaged arm around Tokitoh and pull, falling onto your back on the floor, looking up at his tired, sated violet eyes.

Without thinking, you open your mouth to tell him that you love him, that he's the only thing in Japan that you care about, that you've ever loved. You try to tell him that the day he dies will mark your own end as well, that you'll take bullets and stab wounds and broken bones and unimaginable mental trauma to keep him safe, that he's the only reason you haven't killed Sanada or taken out all of the Izumo in Yokohama. You attempt to articulate that you don't care about his past, or what his real name is, where he's from or how his right hand will overtake his lithe body one day and kill you both. But before you can make the first sound Tokitoh leans down, closes the distance between your mouths and murmurs into your lips. "I know," he says quietly.

And it's as simple as that. No dramatic, heartfelt confessions. No tears and shouting. It's just this primal understanding between a criminal and a stray. Trying to explain yourself to him would only cheapen it, and Tokitoh's never cared about the 'why' or 'how' so much as he's just wanted you there. He lays his head to your shoulder and within moments his breathing evens out into the weary rhythms of an exhausted sleep.

You lay on the floor of your hideout, staring up at the ceiling for not the first time today. You're mentally and physically run down, pushed past your limits and well within your right to sleep for the next eight hours, but you know that rest will again elude you. There's too much work to be done yet, too many loose ends prowling the streets of this cruel city for you to let your guard down. There are Toujo members running drugs in Izumo territory, your youth gang to manage, Kou's shop to secure. Sanada is out there somewhere, probably scheming against you at this very moment, plotting up hundreds of ways to experiment on the snoring young man in your arms, to gain the upper hand in this three-year power struggle you've found yourselves playing. Sekiya is...

What is Sekiya's angle? You know that he's after WA, and that he took quite the interest in Tokitoh's right hand. You know that he watched your stray rip a metal street sign from concrete and beat the living shit out of his gang members. You know that he had the opportunity to kill your cat and he deliberately released him back to you before running. He's a smart man. And perhaps, the thing that interests you the most about Toujo's new leader is that he didn't seem the least bit surprised that Tokitoh had obvious symptoms of WA use and hadn't shredded himself to bits yet. It was almost as if the man was anticipating finding a survivor of the drug. Like he knew Tokitoh existed. That in and of itself is strange.

Carefully, you deposit Tokitoh on your futon, struggle into a pair of jeans, and descend the stairs back into the storage room. You tuck your gun into the back of your waistband as you walk into the Toukohan's main room, run a hand through your disarrayed hair, but it's a futile effort. Ryoji and Kou look up from their quiet discussion over tea at the counter, and your partner looks surprised to see you awake. Kou does not. "He okay?" the former reporter asks, gesturing to the back room.

You nod and pull a stool up to the counter beside him. "It's broken. We'll have to take out those stitches and put the fragments back in his arm, but I'm sure that it's no longer transmitting."

Ryoji nods, his expression distant, and the three of you lapse into a comfortable silence. You're contemplating calling Kasai to discuss the day's peculiar turn of events when your cell rings somewhere near the television. Three sets of eyes jump to the clock over the door of the shop. It's nearly midnight. You pad across the cold wooden floorboards and find your phone atop the Playstation. The caller id display flashes 'restricted,' and you know that it's important. You sink onto the couch and answer.

"I believe your boss has asked you to track me down, question me under duress, and permanently incapacitate me?" You'd recognize that voice anywhere. It's not often that someone kicks Tokitoh in the face and walks away afterward. In fact, it's only happened once since you picked him up and dragged him home two years ago.

"Yes," you answer tonelessly. You don't know how the leader of your rival Yakuza gang got your number. You care even less. Right now you're walking a dangerous line. If Sanada even suspects you of going against orders, again, you're as good as dead.

Sekiya chuckles without humor. "I doubt very much that you have any reason to disobey those orders, Kubota, but I have information that may be of use to that rude little kitten of yours." You hear street traffic and pedestrian chatter over the line. "There's a hotel near Chinatown that I believe you are familiar with. You make deliveries there for your Chinese friend. Meet me in room 401 in an hour. Bring your Izumo partner."

You shake your head incredulously. "How do I know that this isn't a setup?" you muse aloud.

"You don't. This is a one-time offer, Kubota. After tonight it's kill or be killed, and that's bound to get awfully messy. Be a good boy and do as I say."

"Why are you doing this?" is the next question that your taxed mind can't help but to ask.

You don't really expect an answer, but Sekiya surprises you. "Because Sanada doesn't have any answers about that boy's hand. He never has. He's the type of man that enjoys controlling people. I, on the other hand, am a business man, and I know that crossing you in pursuit of Wild Adapter is the worst business move that I can make. I'd much rather have you on my team than hounding my every step. You're the most dangerous kind of junkyard dog."

The call ends and you pull your phone away from your ear and stare blankly at the display, but Sekiya is gone. You toss the compact device onto the couch cushion beside you, lean back, and fish your Seven Stars out of your pocket. As a comforting ring of smoke begins to ring your head you call over your shoulder to Ryoji. "We're meeting Sekiya in an hour. Bring your guns."


End file.
